The topic of the statement and hearing was the new regulation of financial relationships between the state and municipalities. The statement first points out that the determination of municipal financial needs required by the Constitutional Court is simply not possible. A general weakness of the chosen methodology is that it cannot deal with structural changes. It emphasizes that a more elaborate and complex analysis does not necessarily lead to the desired greater rationality. Rather, it poses the risk of conveying a false precision. A certain degree of discretionary leeway and settings is unavoidable and cannot be avoided in any of the common methods for estimating needs. However, supplementing it with a multivariate analysis could make individual steps of the chosen method more transparent and better justified.