The corona pandemic has hit many companies, especially medium-sized companies, economically. With government help, the worst could be prevented. A first record for Thuringia.
Erfurt (dpa/th) - More than 1.1 billion euros have been paid as financial aid to the Thuringian economy during the three Corona years since 2020. This emerges from a balance sheet presented by the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Erfurt at the request of the dpa. The billions come from federal and state programs that are intended to stabilize small and medium-sized companies in particular during the pandemic. Many of them suffered massive sales losses during the lockdowns.
A small part of the financial aid - the ministry has so far mentioned around 47.7 million euros - has been repaid or reclaimed. Mostly because requested emergency aid was not needed after all. These repayments accounted for the lion's share at almost 42 million. A spokesman for the Ministry of Economic Affairs said there were also isolated claims from the Thuringian development bank. However, the final accounts for the individual aids were still in progress - these are intermediate results.
"The corona pandemic of the last three years was a heavy, almost existential burden for large parts of our economy," said Economics Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee (SPD). In this situation, there was actually no alternative to massive financial support for the company.
"This averted irreparable damage to our economy and simply saved many affected companies from going out of business," said Tiefensee. "Without the enormous Corona aid from the federal and state governments, we would have lost much of what we have achieved economically in three decades of development work."
The fact that Germany and Thuringia got through the Corona years reasonably well also has something to do with the economic success of the last few decades. "Not many countries around the world could have afforded the kind of support that Germany was able to afford during this crisis," said the SPD politician. He spoke of the most extensive economic aid in the history of the Federal Republic.
It is clear that such enormous cash flows as during the corona pandemic cannot be permanent. so deep sea. Therefore, at the beginning of the energy crisis in 2022, there were great concerns that the economy would suffer the next setback. "Fortunately, that hasn't come true so far." Nevertheless, the country has provided an aid package for the economy. The hardship program for the Thuringian economy alone has a volume of 120 million euros.
