Otherwise spoiled in polls, Minister of Economics Habeck is currently feeling a harsh wind in his face. The broad public criticism of the gas levy also calls the SPD leader on the plan. Klingbeil certifies the coalition partner “technical mistakes” and too many “nice words”.
SPD leader Lars Klingbeil has criticized Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck for “technical errors” in the gas levy. The Green politician undoubtedly has an interesting style of communication, “and of course we notice that it’s well received by the public,” Klingbeil told the “Zeit Online” portal. At the same time, he warned: “In the end, it’s not just nice words that count in politics, the substance has to be right – that’s what we’re measured by.”
It is now “important that we work together to eliminate the technical errors that occurred during the gas levy,” said Klingbeil. For him, the criteria for when a company receives money from the levy have not yet been understood. “It cannot be that companies that made billions during the crisis are still collecting billions in tax money.”
Private households and companies are to pay the surcharge of a good 2.4 cents per kilowatt hour from October, with VAT on gas consumption falling to seven percent. 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 is intended to prevent company bankruptcies and delivery failures. According to the current regulations, companies that are not in economic difficulties or even make high profits in other business areas would also benefit from the levy. This also triggered massive criticism within the traffic light coalition. Habeck therefore wants to review his previous plans for the levy again.
The employer-oriented Institute of the German Economy (IW) considers improvements to be possible. 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 editorial network Germany (RND). “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,” the experts demanded. However, the idea of ??solidarity-based redistribution of additional costs for gas procurement by means of a levy is fundamentally correct.
The umbrella organization of the energy industry (BDEW) defended the surcharge, but also campaigned for changes. “The best way would have been to support the gas import companies from federal funds or through 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.
The energy policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Michael Kruse, called for the gas surcharge to be limited to companies in difficulties. He proposed a staged test procedure for this. “The deficits that have become known in the design of the gas levy must be remedied as soon as possible,” he told the “Rheinische Post”.
The Greens politician Anton Hofreiter called for the gas levy to be dropped altogether. “The simpler solution would be to say we give up the gas surcharge, we give up the VAT reduction and help the affected companies directly,” he told RND. In “ntv Frühstart” Hofreiter had already said on Friday that the gas levy in its current form was a mistake: “The gas levy must change in such a way that companies that make huge profits simply do not benefit from it. That is not communicable.” It is one of the strengths of democracies to be able to correct decisions: “Because mistakes happen and there was clearly a mistake.”
CSU regional group head Alexander Dobrindt spoke on Bavarian radio about a “contribution rip-off”. “Causing record profits for companies and record burdens for citizens at the same time” is “an impossible practice and must be stopped,” he said.
The German Tenants’ Association also wants to “stamp down” the levy. “Because we assume that the reduction in VAT will not fully offset the burden of the levy,” said President Lukas Siebenkotten of the Bayern media group. The President of the RWI-Leibniz Institute, Christoph Schmidt, called the allocation “poorly targeted”. It would be better for the few companies with great difficulties to be supported in a targeted manner – by levy or tax money, he told the “Rheinische Post”.
(This article was first published on Saturday, August 27, 2022.)
