As of: 08/29/2022 00:38 a.m
The Federal Minister of Economics wants to revise the controversial instrument. Criticism had also been voiced from within the coalition. Meanwhile, German gas storage facilities are filling up faster than expected.
Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck has promised a change in the planned gas levy. The change is intended to prevent companies that do not need it from an economic point of view from benefiting from these additional payments by gas customers. “That’s why you have to work hard on the problem now, and we do that too,” said the Green politician on Sunday evening on ZDF’s “heute journal”. “We will solve this problem.”
The challenge is to ensure the supply of gas to the population and companies, “and that was in danger,” explained Habeck. Direct state aid to ailing companies is not a solution. “Long-term financing by the state is not a business model, and that’s why we had to choose this allocation,” he explained. “We have to see that these companies, which actually don’t need access to this levy, don’t get it either.”
Criticism from the FDP and SPD
Politicians from the SPD and FDP had called for a corresponding revision before the cabinet meeting on Tuesday. “Manual mistakes” should be corrected by this date, according to FDP faction leader Christian Dürr to “Bild”. The gas levy should “under no circumstances lead to extra returns for companies”.
The SPD member of the Bundestag Ralf Stegner also told the “Bild” that the cabinet meeting in Meseberg was “the right place and the right time to renegotiate the gas levy”. The currently planned allocation is “unfair”.
Habeck: No reason to relax
Meanwhile, Habeck warned once morest judging the good filling level at the gas storage facilities as a relaxation. The stored gas should “be withdrawn once more as a reserve” in a possibly tense situation in winter – but how stable the situation will then be “no one can predict now”.
The gas storage facilities are already 82 percent full and should soon reach the level of 85 percent targeted for October. “We only got it so full because consumption went down in the summer. And that’s why the appeal is still right: we have to bring gas consumption down in Germany,” warned the minister.
