The new relief package of the traffic light coalition promises billions in aid, but also leaves questions unanswered. The federal states are demanding clarity, especially when it comes to financing. The Union meanwhile criticizes the measures as "insufficient" and "not targeted".
After the traffic light agreement on a new relief package worth billions, leading coalition politicians are promoting the plans. The decisive factor is the result, "and I think that's convincing," said Federal Minister of Finance and FDP leader Christian Lindner of the ARD with a view to the long negotiations. On the other hand, there is sharp criticism from the opposition - and two large federal states insist on having a say: the heads of government of North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg, Hendrik Wüst and Winfried Kretschmann, called for an early conference of prime ministers with Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The relief package will have a massive impact on state budgets, Kretschmann said on Sunday. That is why the states urgently need to talk to the federal government about this. Wüst, currently chairman of the Prime Ministers' Conference, told the newspapers of the Bayern media group: "If the states are to pay, they must also be able to make decisions." There are still many open questions. "This should be discussed very promptly at a Prime Minister's conference with the Federal Chancellor."
On Sunday, the traffic light coalition agreed on a third relief package, the size of which the government estimates at around 65 billion euros. It includes, among other things, direct payments for pensioners and students, tax breaks and an increase in the standard rates for basic security and child benefit. An electricity price brake for a certain basic consumption is also planned. In addition, the traffic light is striving for a nationwide successor to the 9-euro ticket in local transport, namely in the price range of 49 to 69 euros per month. The federal government wants to subsidize 1.5 billion euros if the states pay at least as much.
The German Association of Cities and Towns and Municipalities called for commitments from the federal states to finance the nationwide local transport ticket. The city council supports the goal of designing a successor model for the 9-euro ticket, said President Markus Lewe of the "Rheinische Post". "However, the federal funds earmarked for this alone will not be enough by a long shot." Above all, the states must be held accountable. "You have to move now," said the CDU politician, who is mayor of the city of Münster. Funding should not be left to the cities.
The general manager of the German Association of Towns and Municipalities, Gerd Landsberg, told the newspapers of the Funke media group that the planned continuation of a uniform, discounted local transport ticket was a correct and logical step. In this context, however, "the sustained increase in investment" in local public transport, especially in rural areas, remains indispensable. "Especially for the people there, the advantage of a discounted ticket is rather small because the necessary connections have not been available so far."
CSU regional group chief Alexander Dobrindt, on the other hand, criticized that the traffic light compromise was "unspecific, incomplete and insufficient". "Necessary measures against the energy price explosion remain unresolved," he said: "no decision to continue operating the nuclear power plants, no decision to reduce gas prices, no decision to stop the gas levy, no clarity on how to reduce energy costs, neither at the pump nor for gas "still with the stream".
The Union described the relief package as not targeted enough. "I would rather have 1,000 or 2,000 euros for people with a small or medium income than 300 euros again for all pensioners," said Jens Spahn, deputy chairman of the Union, on ZDF. "So it's not particularly targeted." For a family of four who can get by on 2,500 euros net and are having a hard time with the high energy prices, they get 36 euros a month for the two children. "That's all the support."
Criticism of the planned increase in the child allowance for low-income families came from the Child Protection Association. The increase in the subsidy by 21 euros a month "disappoints me," said club president Heinz Hilgers to the editorial network Germany. The low-income recipients of this supplement would spend a large part of their income on food. With these products, however, the inflation rate is not around seven percent, but twice as high, Hilgers noted. The child supplement is paid in addition to the child benefit.
Lindner also promoted plans to skim off so-called random profits from electricity producers. "I am very much in favor of switching off the return autopilot on the electricity market (...)," he said on ARD. "Specifically, it's about the producers of wind power, for example, being paid as if they had bought expensive gas. That has to be switched off." Lindner emphasized on ZDF that it was not about an excess profit tax. The SPD and Greens had called for such a tax for energy companies, but the FDP rejected it. "It's about the price per kilowatt hour, it's not about a company's profit," the finance minister explained the coalition plans on ARD. "An excess profit tax, on the other hand, would have brought arbitrariness into our tax system."
SPD chairman Lars Klingbeil also backed the planned intervention in the electricity market. "This is an important signal to say: We are intervening in the electricity market and where profits happen by chance, we will skim off these profits and we will give them back to the consumers," said Klingbeil on Monday on ZDF. He assumes that the intervention is legally secure.
SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert meanwhile assured speed with the electricity market plans: "It has to be quick now. We're looking for a common solution at European level in the short term, that's already going on," he told the newspapers of the Neue Berliner Redaktionsgesellschaft. "If we don't find a European way, which I don't think, then we'll implement the profit skimming nationally." Either way, the Germans could rely on the price brake coming.
The economist Michael Hüther was critical of this project. "The taxation of chance profits remains just as incalculable as the resulting relief for electricity customers," said the director of the employer-related Institute of German Economics of the "Rheinische Post". "All in all: vague solution whose volume and effect remain unclear."
