The governing coalition agrees on a regulation on bonuses and dividends for the planned electricity and gas price brake. Companies are only allowed to pay them out if they receive less than 50 million euros in state support.
The traffic light groups have agreed that larger companies can only pay limited bonuses and dividends if they receive help from the state gas price brake. “We have agreed in the coalition factions that we will also introduce a regulation for bonuses and dividends with the electricity and gas price brakes,” said the budget spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, Dennis Rhode.
“Anyone who receives more than 25 million euros in state support may no longer increase the previously agreed amounts of bonuses or dividends,” said Rhode. “If a company receives more than 50 million euros, we prohibit the payment altogether.” However, companies could voluntarily forego aid and would then not be subject to these regulations.
This affects above all Dax companies, said the deputy leader of the SPD parliamentary group, Verena Hubertz. Beneficiaries of the gas price brake would also have to keep 90 percent of the workforce by 2025. The gas price brake will be introduced from March 1st, but applies retroactively to January 1st.
According to the SPD faction deputy Matthias Miersch, the traffic light factions also made changes to the government plans for the planned skimming off of so-called excess profits from sharply increased energy prices. The allowance for biogas plants, which according to plans by the Ministry of Economic Affairs should be six cents per kilowatt hour, has been increased to nine cents. In addition, smaller biogas plants would be exempt from the levy. In the case of nuclear power, on the other hand, the parliamentary groups would have increased the levy somewhat.
Miersch called on the federal government and the EU Commission to clear the way for further changes. With reference to EU law, the Ministry of Economics said that new plants could not be exempted from the levy and also rejected a proposal for a reinvestment clause.
