Miersch and the Vice President of the Greens in the Bundestag, Andreas Audretsch, also appealed in the "Tagesspiegel" to the FDP to give up their resistance to a so-called excess profit tax in order to be able to finance further relief for citizens and companies because of the enormous increase in gas prices.
"So that the burden on small and medium-sized incomes does not get out of hand, we must also distribute the current over-profits in the energy industry fairly," said Miersch. "We can't explain to anyone that some energy companies make billions of excess profits, but that energy importers have to be supported by gas customers."
Audretsch said such a tax is a question of justice. "We will have to relieve people with small and medium incomes, pensioners and people on basic security in a targeted and substantial way, and not at some point, but from autumn," he told the "Tagesspiegel". "We also need a moratorium on electricity and gas cuts in winter and must rule out layoffs." Nobody should "lose their home in such a difficult situation" in winter.
Meanwhile, the head of the Federal Network Agency, Klaus Müller, warned that consumers in Germany would have to save significantly more energy than before in order to avert a gas shortage in winter. The reduction in gas supplies from Russia to just 20 percent of the agreed amount means that the shortage can only be prevented in two best-case scenarios, Müller told the "Welt am Sonntag".
"For these scenarios, however, consumers must save at least 20 percent - that is, much more than before," said Müller. "In all other scenarios, there is already a risk of a gas shortage in December or we will have low storage levels at the end of the coming heating period."
In addition to the savings, the transmission of gas to neighboring countries would also have to be reduced by 20 percent, and 10 to 15 gigawatt hours of gas from other countries would also be needed. "If we don't save a lot and don't get any additional gas, we have a problem," said the head of the network agency.
Müller said that the gas production in Germany by fracking demanded by the Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) would not help to prevent a gas emergency. On the other hand, he did not rule out longer operating times for nuclear power plants.
