The economics minister said on Thursday in the Bundestag that the negative trend in inflation was over.
(Photo: IMAGO/Political Moments)
Robert Habeck probably hangs out too much with Christian Lindner. Unfamiliar words escaped the Economics Minister at the presentation of the annual economic report and later in the Bundestag. Above all, thanks to the market, the crisis is not that bad. It takes “discipline”. The new Habeck jargon culminated in the term “transformative supply policy”.
And the inexperienced observer asks himself: What’s going on? Was the green vice chancellor shot by the FDP vice chancellor?
Nope, to stay in Habeck’s words. The fact that the Greens rely on supply policy, i.e. the improvement of the framework conditions, is not so new. He just never called it that.
If it succeeds, the energy transition will probably be the largest conceivable supply-side policy program. Because in addition to climate protection, it should bring low energy prices.
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And yet there are crucial differences between Lindner’s and Habeck’s supply policy ideas. Habeck rather believes that the framework conditions alone are not sufficient, that demand policy in the form of subsidies must also play a role. Lindner doesn’t think much of it. So far known.
More interesting is the question of how both want to shape the supply policy. So it was no platitude that Habeck used the adjective “transformative”. Lindner would rather have a classic supply policy from which everyone benefits, for example through general tax cuts. Habeck is more reserved, wants to cut the green relief.
But this is time-consuming and complex. Habeck knows that too. And so the Ministry of Economics had already proposed “bridging solutions” of its own accord in the draft of the annual economic report: clearly limited tax investment incentives from which everyone would initially benefit.
More: Federal government expects low growth for 2023