Economics Minister Habeck's planned gas levy is intended to help particularly troubled companies. Suddenly, however, companies with strong profits are also benefiting. Now there are lots of suggestions for improvement. But time is pressing.
The employer-oriented Institute of German Business (IW) has made suggestions for possible improvements to the controversial gas levy. Politicians must "sharpen the criteria for claiming compensation payments and take more account of the financial situation of companies and their systemic relevance," said IW energy experts Andreas Fischer and Malte Küper to the newspapers of the editorial network Germany.
"The fact that with the levy, according to the current interpretation, companies can also claim support that may not get into financial difficulties themselves, proves to be a design flaw. This needs to be improved," demanded the IW experts. However, they believe that the idea of sharing the additional costs of gas procurement through a levy on a solidarity basis and thus preventing the collapse of systemically important energy companies is fundamentally correct.
The umbrella organization of the energy industry (BDEW) defended the surcharge, but also advocates modifications to the regulations. "The best way would have been to support the gas import companies from federal funds or via loan safeguards," said BDEW boss Kerstin Andreae to the RND. However, the federal government has chosen the path of the levy, which spreads the burden more widely.
"One thing must be clear with all the correction proposals currently being discussed: the replacement procurement of urgently needed gas quantities must not be jeopardized," demanded Andreae. Therefore, the financial ability of gas importers to act must continue to be ensured. But that applies "of course only to those companies that are indispensable for the overall system".
The gas levy of a good 2.4 cents per kilowatt hour consumed is to be paid by private households and companies from October. The money is intended to relieve companies that have to buy expensive gas elsewhere to fulfill their contracts because of the reduced deliveries from Russia. This should prevent company bankruptcies and ultimately delivery failures.
According to the current regulations, companies that are not currently in economic difficulties or are even making high profits in other business areas would also benefit from the levy. This had triggered massive criticism within the traffic light coalition.
The energy policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Michael Kruse, called for the gas surcharge to be limited to companies in difficulties and proposed a staged test procedure for this. "The deficits that have become known in the design of the gas surcharge must be remedied as soon as possible," Kruse told the "Rheinische Post". The group of recipients can be restricted through a staged procedure so "that only companies that have gotten into financial difficulties and where this has also been determined can claim compensation payments."
The gas network operator subsidiary Trading Hub Europe (THE) considers a change in the gas surcharge to be impossible as early as October. "A recalculation of the levy with effect from October 1 is not provided for by the regulation after August 15," said a THE spokeswoman for the "Rheinische Post". However, a change is possible at a later date.
