When the federal and state governments meet, it’s about money. Everyone agrees that there should be gas price relief. But there is a dispute about who pays how much. But the admission of refugees and the 49-euro ticket are also on the agenda. The latter suddenly wobbles again.

Who moves first? That is the big question at the prime ministers’ conference in Hanover. It’s about billions that are supposed to rain down on the country as money – in the form of energy price reductions, the 49-euro ticket for local public transport and funds for refugee accommodation. And of course about who pays how much.

The constellation is as usual: the states want more money from the federal government and the federal government wants the states to pay more. Apparently Chancellor Olaf Scholz is going to Hanover with a new offer. As can be seen from the draft resolution, the federal government is offering the federal states more money for local public transport and the accommodation of refugees.

The federal states will first discuss this and the other controversial issues among themselves this morning – they want to face the federal government as one. In the afternoon they meet Scholz. At previous meetings there was no agreement, that should be different now. It is about these questions:

Successor to the 9-euro ticket in public transport

The federal and state governments agree that there should be a successor to the 9-euro ticket – the 49-euro ticket. Both sides want it for the coming year but are arguing about funding. The federal government has offered 1.5 billion euros per year for this purpose. However, the federal states want another 1.5 billion euros to expand regional rail routes. The Chancellery is only offering one billion euros for this.

From 2023 onwards, payments are to be increased by three percent annually. If there is no agreement on financing, there is no ticket. Chancellor Scholz was confident on Tuesday: the states had almost reached an agreement on such a “Germany ticket”, said the SPD politician at a citizens’ dialogue in Gifhorn, Lower Saxony. “Tomorrow is the day when it should finally succeed.” In the “ntv Frühstart” CDU politician Thorsten Frei, on the other hand, questioned the ticket as a whole.

Who will pay for the third relief package?

The federal and state governments have been arguing for weeks about the cost allocation of the traffic light coalition’s third relief package worth 65 billion euros from the beginning of September. Country representatives criticized that they were not included in advance and are now supposed to bear around 19 billion euros of the costs, in particular because of planned tax relief.

Gas and electricity price brake

Shortly before the meeting in the Chancellery, the federal government presented plans for a gas price brake. On the one hand, the state takes over the December discount with a one-off payment. In addition, the gas price for private customers is to be capped from March, if possible retrospectively to February. For 80 percent of the previous year’s consumption, the gas should cost 12 cents per kilowatt hour.

If you use more, you have to pay more. The March date is too late for the countries – it is unclear whether it is enough for them that the cheap price could apply retrospectively from February. Thuringia’s Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow from the left called for the gas price cap to start on January 1st. The Federal Chancellery announced on Tuesday that it is aiming for a start on February 1st.

At the same time, Scholz is faced with demands that an electricity price brake be introduced from January. According to the draft, the Chancellery wants to cap electricity prices for households and companies at 40 cents per kilowatt hour. Are there also reliefs for heating oil and pellets? So far, only a hardship case regulation is planned.

hospital energy costs

The federal states also refer to “the extraordinarily increasing energy and material costs in hospitals, university clinics and care facilities”. According to the draft resolution, the Federal Chancellery wants to make twelve billion euros available from the Economic Stabilization Fund for a hardship case regulation. Of this, up to eight billion will benefit hospitals and care facilities.

refugee costs

Around a million people fled to Germany as a result of the Ukraine war, and the number of asylum seekers from other countries is also increasing. The municipalities see themselves on the edge of their capacity and demand that the federal and state governments fully assume the costs for accommodation, care and integration. The states in turn point to the federal government. The Chancellery is now offering federal states and local authorities a total of 4.25 billion euros this year and next for the care of refugees.

Housing benefit financing

People who do not receive social benefits but have little money to live on can apply for housing benefit. So far, the federal and state governments have shared the costs for the around 600,000 households who were last eligible. The countries no longer want to participate. Especially not because the federal government wants to more than triple the number of recipients to two million households by January 1st. Since the average payments also increase by 190 euros, the costs increase to around 5.1 billion euros, according to the Ministry of Construction. The federal government wants the federal states to continue to bear half of the costs.