Berlin, Dusseldorf A good 42 million euros paid out within half a year – from a pot of a whopping five billion: That is the balance of the federal government’s energy cost containment program (EKDP) so far. Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) announced the subsidy program for industry in April.
Companies have been able to submit applications since July. 1247 have done so in the meantime, but 269 of them only received a notification afterwards. And of these, only a fraction received the aid.
Business representatives, including the industry associations from the chemical, metal and plastics sectors, blame the federal government and the responsible Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control (BAFA) for the meager balance sheet. Long waiting times have even led to insolvencies in some companies, which allegedly could have been prevented if the EKDP aid had been paid out more quickly.
Criticism also comes from politicians. “Of thousands of applications, only a fraction has been processed, and even after approval, the companies have to wait far too long for the payments,” criticizes SPD parliamentary group viz Verena Hubertz.
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The Federal Ministry of Economics considers the criticism to be excessive. But the house of Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) is now reacting. The Handelsblatt learned from government circles that the staff responsible for processing should be “significantly” increased.
Bafa employees from other areas should be consulted for this purpose. There is also a call for tenders to hire external help to process the application.
In the past few weeks, there have already been minor simplifications in the verifications requested by companies. It is said that this point will be refilled again.
Program for the energy-intensive industry
The EKDP is specially designed for sectors such as steel, chemicals or glass, which are most affected by the increased gas and electricity prices. Companies whose energy costs have more than doubled compared to the previous year can receive grants of up to 50 million euros.
“The energy costs have driven us into insolvency.”
(Photo: Dominik Asbach/laif)
The toilet paper manufacturer Hakle was the first company to publicly complain that it had to file for bankruptcy due to the late payment of state aid. “If we had received state aid faster, we wouldn’t be insolvent now,” owner Volker Jung told Handelsblatt.
By his own admission, Hakle applied for help from the EKDP on July 18. No payment was made until September 2nd, and Hakle filed for bankruptcy on that day. However, the Ministry of Economics sees the company as responsible for this.
There have been “several queries to the company due to missing information and documents,” explains a spokeswoman. According to company sources, Hakle was only missing a single document.
The example of Hakle
The descriptions also differ when it comes to the question of whether the Ministry of Economics knew about the precarious situation at the paper manufacturer. The spokeswoman denies that. On September 2, there was a phone call with Bafa. Even then, the authority was not informed about the impending insolvency.
However, Hakle boss Jung had written a letter to several ministries, including the Federal Ministry of Economics. The letter is dated August 29 – five days before the bankruptcy filing.
>>Read here: Hakle boss Volker Jung in an interview
The letter is available to the Handelsblatt. In it, Jung warned of an “existence-threatening situation”. “Securing our company cannot be achieved without the long-awaited aid.”
Today Jung says the letter apparently worked. According to his information, Hakle should have received the first payment “probably in September”. “We’re talking about a seven-digit amount that we would have been entitled to – and that we urgently needed to finance our energy costs,” says Jung.
Government circles also contradict this statement. Hakle clearly overestimated his claim, even an earlier payment would not have changed anything about the company’s insolvency.
A similar case is the Heger foundry. In Enkenbach-Alsenborn, Rhineland-Palatinate, the company casts iron components. Bankruptcy came at the end of September.
According to information from coalition circles, the company had also contacted the government and blamed too long a wait for EKDP help for the insolvency. The ministry spokeswoman, on the other hand, says: “I am not aware of any communication from the company to the Heger Group.”
There is no extension for small companies
Officially, one does not want to know much about the criticism of the general EKDP processing times in the ministry as well as in Bafa. A spokesman for the authority said the applications were being processed “at high pressure”. In government circles, however, some of the criticism is seen as justified, which has now led to an increase in staff.
The reason for the long procedures is therefore mainly due to the special location. So far, the mantra for corporate aid has been to want to help, but not to the wrong person, so as not to thwart the saving of energy.
Accordingly, the EKDP was designed with evidence of energy costs and the financial situation of the companies, also due to specifications by the EU Commission. “In addition, because of the location in Eschborn, it is not easy for Bafa to find new, capable people,” says a government official.
There had already been talks in the government to withdraw the EKDP from Bafa. The traffic light had planned to expand the program to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The number of applicants would have grown from 1,247 to tens or hundreds of thousands. It was said that no single authority could do this. The tax offices would have been an alternative.
>> Read here: This is how the gas price brake relieves
But with the announcement of the federal government’s €200 billion defense shield, the mantra of targeted aid has been done away with.
That’s why there is no need for the extension. The EKDP should run until the end of the year and then merge into the so-called defense shield.
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