The federal states want to relieve the citizens of the costs of energy. The means of choice is a price cap. Its costs are likely to be in excess of 100 billion euros. It is unclear where the money will come from and will be negotiated with the federal government next week.
The federal states are demanding a price cap for electricity, gas and heat from the traffic light government. They had agreed on this during joint consultations, said the head of government of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hendrik Wüst, after the meeting, which lasted several hours. The federal government must quickly agree on this. The federal states had discussed the planned third relief package against the consequences of the energy crisis. It was actually supposed to be a meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz. However, he had canceled and referred to his corona infection.
Wüst called for a fair burden sharing between the federal and state governments. The federal states are ready for constructive cooperation with the federal government in order to get people and the economy through the winter well. At the same time, he called for relief “not according to the watering can principle”, with a special focus on lower and middle incomes.
In the meantime, from the point of view of Berlin’s Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey, it is still unclear how future relief can be financed. “That’s the point where we couldn’t quite agree,” she said. The cost of the lids was probably more than 100 billion euros. “In all likelihood, this will be in the three-digit billion range,” she said.
In particular, the question of whether new loans can be taken out for financing beyond the limitation of the debt brake “we could not finally clarify,” said Giffey. The SPD-led A-states had made a protocol statement and explicitly advocated such a possibility.
Bavaria used the opportunity of the protocol declarations to once again demand the continued operation of all three nuclear power plants in love and the use of more coal piles. In addition, the Free State again demanded the abolition of the gas surcharge. Prime Minister Markus Söder also appealed to the federal government to reduce VAT on food and to accelerate the expansion of public transport with more funds. Wüst said that tax breaks should also be discussed at the federal-state summit next week. This is a particularly fast-acting lever. “We can’t afford a long back and forth.”
Overall, however, the third relief package is to be embedded in an overall concept. The federal government must consider bearing the costs of the housing benefit reform alone, taking on more regionalization funds in transport and parts of the hospital financing. Wüst and Giffey also demanded that the federal government make more money available to the states and local authorities for refugee care.
The round with Chancellor Scholz should now be made up for on Tuesday (October 4th). However, Wüst curbed expectations of a comprehensive agreement. He pointed out that some points would also be clarified in the Bundesrat.
