Veronika Grimm is one of the “economic wise men” and chairwoman of the gas price commission. She is skeptical as to whether the gas price brake that has now been launched will achieve the desired success. In their eyes, the incentive to save is missing for many consumers. And the price of gas will definitely remain high.
The chairwoman of the gas price commission, Veronika Grimm, has warned against having too high expectations of the planned gas price brake. “We will permanently end our dependence on Russia,” said the economics professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg to the newspapers of the Funke media group. “The gas price will therefore remain significantly higher than before the Russian invasion of Ukraine due to the higher liquid gas procurement prices despite a gas price brake.” The Commission cannot pretend that nothing happened.
Grimm campaigned for a gas price brake in the form of a one-off payment. “It will be important to have a high incentive to save. That would clearly be the case with a one-off payment,” she said. “One would have a much smaller incentive to save if one were to lower the gas price by a certain percentage.” If you gave people a one-time payment, they would still get a lot out of using less gas.
At the same time, Grimm complained about the time pressure to which the committee was exposed. “The decision to convene such a body could have been made a few months ago, after all, the development of gas prices was foreseeable,” she said. The traffic light coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP recently announced a “defense shield” to support consumers and companies because of rising energy prices.
A gas price brake is intended to cap the prices for at least part of consumption in such a way that private households and companies are not overwhelmed. A commission of experts set up by the federal government is to present recommendations for the design of the price brake. At a meeting next weekend, the commission wants to draw up a “resilient proposal” and present it to politicians.
