Berlin Robert Habeck (Greens) and Christian Lindner (FDP) want to help. On Friday, the Federal Economics and Finance Ministers presented a protective shield for the economy. The central element: subsidies for companies that are hit particularly hard by high energy prices. The federal government wants to reimburse part of the energy costs.
At the same time, the government is working flat out to become independent of Russian energy. They want to prepare for the event that Russian President Vladimir Putin turns off the gas supply. However, Germany will only become independent if companies reduce their consumption and replace as many systems that require gas as possible.
Can this work at the same time, burden for the independence of Russia and relief from the state? Numerous economists agree: absolutely not.
The Bonn economist Hans-Martin von Gaudecker wrote on Twitter: “Whenever you think that politicians have exhausted all their follies, they go one step further.” His colleague Moritz Schularick explained that the “extent of planlessness in Berlin” is not too high grasp.
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Jan Schnellenbach, economist at the Brandenburg Technical University, said: “The doors of the government are obviously wide open at the moment for short-sighted special industrial interests.”
Andreas Loeschel, Professor of Sustainability, Environmental and Resource Economics at the Ruhr University Bochum, announced: “If politicians turn the scientists’ recommendations into the opposite, then the crisis scenarios of the lobbyists kick in.”
The concern: The subsidies mean that the companies concerned are no longer confronted with such high prices, so that they have less or no incentive at all to reduce their gas consumption or to convert their machines to avoid the high prices. It would take all the longer to do without Russian gas and become independent of Putin – and the greater the damage would be if Putin were to impose a supply freeze himself.
Habeck and Feld defend themselves
Ironically, one of the best-known advocates of regulatory policy, Lars Feld, defends the measure. “Even if this instrument is not completely clean in terms of regulatory policy, it is manageable and justifiable in this case,” said Finance Minister Lindner’s chief economic adviser to the Handelsblatt. The grants are only intended for the absolute top.
Economics Minister Habeck called the economists’ criticism “almost cynical”. “To say there is an incentive for higher energy consumption is comparatively unrealistic,” said the Vice Chancellor on Monday.
>> Read here: “Economic policy shock absorber”: These five points are contained in the federal government’s aid package
Companies can receive the subsidy if they exceed a certain energy cost threshold. The level increases the greater the load from the energy costs. The higher the level, the further the group of companies entitled to receive is restricted.
Companies from energy and trade-intensive sectors receive 30 percent of the price difference. Companies that are slipping into the red due to energy costs get 50 percent of the difference. Companies can be reimbursed 70 percent if they come from one of 26 sectors that are particularly affected, including chemicals, glass and steel, in addition to the red figures.
For Habeck, the requirement that companies have to make losses is a remedy against false incentives: “Now please show me an entrepreneur who says that I want a 15 million government grant this year have a negative operating result.”
However, the first level of grants, in which companies are reimbursed up to two million euros, does not have this restriction. And according to Veronika Grimm, it’s also about companies that are already in the red: “The incentive to reduce gas consumption should definitely be maintained.”
According to FDP parliamentary group leader Lukas Köhler, the economists are right in theory. In reality, however, the result would be different. “Companies know that we won’t cushion their energy costs forever,” said Köhler. So they adjusted their behavior anyway.
However, Grimm considers this unlikely: “I consider it highly questionable whether the economy, contrary to the incentives, is now saving fossil fuels wherever possible.”
More: “Germany will be the main loser” – This is how endangered the successful model of the German economy is.