With over 30,000 entrepreneurs and self-employed people, repayment notices are under the Christmas tree. Several federal states want the corona aid of 300 million euros back on behalf of the federal government. That seems to be legally permissible. But the timing is once again devastating. With the Omikron virus variant, sales continue to drop. The shops are open, but customers stay at home.
This is bringing small self-employed and medium-sized companies back into liquidity problems. Bankruptcies through repayment notices from the state should actually be a no-go.
Minister of Economic Affairs Robert Habeck, the fate of his predecessor Peter Altmaier should be a warning. The CDU politician announced November aid for parts of the economy, which was then paid out in February. Altmaier became a mockery of the country.
In the case of notices of repayment, the patterns are repeated. As then, the federal and state governments are blaming each other. The countries claim their hands are tied. The federal government refers to the discretion of the administration. The entrepreneurs rub their eyes and just think: Has the state learned nothing at all?
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With such uncoordinated actions, trust in the state structures dies bit by bit.
Entrepreneurs must be able to pay off their wages
The cardinal mistake from the beginning was that the entrepreneur’s wages were not taken into account in the aid. It’s mostly about self-employed people and small entrepreneurs. They don’t suck millions out of their companies. They simply have to live on something – and accordingly be able to use state compensation for their livelihood. It was clear that the Social Democrats had no heart for this clientele. Above all, they referred the self-employed people to the social welfare office.
For Habeck, that should actually be a core clientele. It’s about the self-employed yoga teacher or freelance translator. Voters who are close to the FDP or the Greens.
Robert Habeck and Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner should therefore coordinate as soon as possible. A country moratorium, as Habeck is now proposing, is all well and good. But it has to come too.
You also need a short-term guarantee that no one will go bankrupt because of the repayments. Next year, the entrepreneur’s wages will have to be integrated pragmatically into economic aid. The traffic light has come to do better than the grand coalition. Here you can quickly prove it.
More: What Minister of Economic Affairs Habeck has to do