That’s already going too far for the Green Basis, and not far enough for the FDP. And when I think how heatedly we are already debating the extension of the term in the Handelsblatt editorial team, I don’t want to put myself in the shoes of Habeck, who has to bring three parties into line on this issue.
While companies and consumers have been suffering from the high energy prices for months, the operators of many coal-fired power plants, nuclear reactors, wind turbines and solar parks are collecting enormous sums – because the price of electricity is based on the most expensive energy source. Because electricity from gas-fired power plants became more and more expensive due to the gas shortage, the price for electricity from other power plants also rose – without the costs for these also increasing to the same extent.
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In its third relief package, the governing coalition announced that it would skim off some of these gains. Sounds logical at first – but less than 48 hours after the announcement of the traffic light decisions, the debate about the right “how” is already flaring up.
With good reason, because the state fumbling around with existing, albeit dysfunctional, market mechanisms is the economic equivalent of heart surgery: sometimes unavoidable, but before you put on the scalpel, you should have a rough idea of where the pacemaker belongs. Otherwise you’ll only make things worse.
Karen Pittel, economist at the Ifo Institute, fears: “In the worst case, even more natural gas would be used in electricity production if higher profits could be achieved.”
That could happen if a fixed price for electricity generation from all energy sources except natural gas were set – and natural gas power plants became particularly lucrative as a result. After the botched gas levy, it would be the second time in a short space of time that government intervention in the energy market went awry.
And again on the subject of energy: One of Minister of Economics Habeck’s most ambitious projects are the floating liquid gas terminals, which are to be moored on the German coast before the end of this autumn. They should make it possible for liquefied natural gas to reach Germany directly by tanker, without having to go through foreign terminals.
However, floating terminals must also be approved and connected to the existing gas pipeline network. How does something like this work in a country where even the operating license for a fully installed solar system can take a year? Annika Keilen was there and answered this question using the example of the port city of Brunsbüttel.
In the imagination of many left-of-center Germans, Sweden is something of an eternal political dream: a social-democratic welfare state that takes care of everything and everyone, where the children have Astrid Lindgren read to them every evening, and where everyone knows how much their neighbors earn . After all, there is no tax secrecy.
But the picture of the Nordic Bullerbü idyll is cracking. The right-wing extremist Sweden Democrats could soon become part of the government, while the Social Democratic Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson has to worry about her re-election on September 11th. The more than 100-year dominance of the Social Democrats would then be history.
For the first time since the Sweden Democrats entered the Swedish Parliament 12 years ago, both the Conservatives and the Christian Democrats have signaled that they can envisage a government involving the far right. So far, all bourgeois parties have kept the Sweden Democrats, who emerged from the neo-Nazi scene, at a distance.
In the polls, the Sweden Democrats are currently at almost 20 percent, putting them in second place behind the governing Social Democrats (almost 30 percent). One reason for the strengthening of the right: the escalating gang crime with already 46 fatalities in the current year.
And then there is Heinrich von Pierer. Like millions of German seniors, the former CEO of Siemens AG, who is not necessarily at risk of poverty in old age, can look forward to a special pension payment of 300 euros from the traffic light relief package.
At the Handelsblatt Media Group’s summer camp yesterday, Monday, I had the opportunity to ask Pierer what he was doing with the unexpected wealth: he wanted to donate the money to the youth section of his tennis club. And because the donation can be deducted from taxes, it should be 600 euros.
Who knows, maybe the traffic light’s pension gift will trigger a pre-Christmas donation boom. Then this “kneeling before the Methuselah Republic” (as our social policy expert Frank Specht calls the special payment) would at least have something good.
I wish you a day of great tennis.
Best regards
Her
Christian Rickens
Editor-in-Chief Handelsblatt
hp: Liz Truss governs as the new British Prime Minister a country in an economic state of emergency. Is she the right person to lead Britain through this crisis? How much “Iron Lady” is in Truss? And how will the relationship with the EU develop under her? Write us your opinion in five sentences on [email protected]. We will publish selected articles with attribution on Thursday in print and online.
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