Refueling as expensive as in 2012 – Handelsblatt Morning Briefing

Many Germans currently experience driving up to the gas station like a round of ghost trains. Diesel with an average of 1.526 euros and Super E10 with 1.647 euros are more expensive than they have been in nine years. A tank of fuel can cost 100 euros and more.

The main price drivers were the higher crude oil prices, say ADAC and the Mineralölwirtschaftsverband (MWV); in addition, the stronger dollar is noticeable.

In this increasingly dreary situation, the EU Commission yesterday made a few practical proposals that will be discussed in the member states. Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson explains that they could help poor citizens with petrol vouchers or cut taxes in a targeted manner.

Usually an industry proudly calculates what it produces. In the auto industry, on the other hand, what counts now is what it does not produce – the mix of a lack of chips and skyrocketing raw material prices is toxic. Up to eleven million vehicles that would otherwise roll off the assembly line are not manufactured, the Boston Consulting Group determines. Loss of sales: almost 180 billion euros.

Medium-sized auto suppliers with sales of less than one billion euros are now primarily at risk, our report reports. Two smaller companies, the Bolta-Werke and Heinze from Westphalia, are already bankrupt. The industry is under unprecedented pressure, writes the supplier industry working group.

In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the CDU says goodbye to the opposition after 15 years in government. SPD politician Franz Müntefering once confessed that it was “crap”, but an optimist can certainly grow from this crap. At the moment, the Christian Democrats in Schwerin seem like a desolate troop: Inexperienced forces come to the head of the parliamentary group, the party chairmanship is only temporarily occupied.

SPD election winner Manuela Schwesig – with 40 percent close to the People’s Party – had always proclaimed a stable government with reliable partners as the goal. The left now seem best suited to this. Conclusion: After explorations with all parties except the AfD, Schwesig enters into concrete coalition negotiations with the party that for many is simply a “pariah”.

We do not know what a traffic light coalition will bring about in the major disruption issues of this time. A reorientation of drug policy seems certain – the possession and consumption of cannabis could be legalized. He is confident “that a traffic light coalition will decriminalize and legalize cannabis,” said SPD expert Dirk Heidenblut the Tagesspiegel. It could still take one to three years before it can be legally acquired.

The Union is vehemently criticizing the plans, so that one already gets an idea of ​​how moving things could soon be in Parliament. Cannabis legalization would be a “dam break”, says Stephan Pilsinger, drug policy spokesman for the Union parliamentary group: “At some point we will unfortunately talk about the legalization of all drugs.”

In Bavaria, the home country of the CSU MP, cannabis users are exempt from punishment with a maximum of six grams of the substance, in Berlin, on the other hand, with up to 15 grams. The liberal economist Milton Friedman saw the cause almost 40 years ago as follows: “I advocate that drugs are treated in exactly the same way as alcohol and tobacco are currently treated. It would be better if the free market laws regulate that. “

Finance Minister Olaf Scholz speaks of “several billions” that Germany will receive from the global minimum tax.

(Photo: imago images / photothek)

136 states want to finally agree on a global minimum tax of 15 percent for large companies. The Munich-based Ifo Institute has calculated what this means for Germany – and came up with additional income of five to six billion euros.

Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz speaks of “several billion” in general. It is additional income that would be possible without tax increases. The still-Vice-Chancellor and soon-to-be Chancellor: “We have to ensure that the baker around the corner doesn’t have the feeling that he pays more taxes than a global company.”

The VW boss Herbert Diess sees the largest car company in Europe wrongly positioned.

Our story yesterday about a possible job cut at VW caused quite a stir. As a result of the new electromobility, 30,000 jobs could possibly be saved – in one of several scenarios, recently CEO Herbert Diess surprisingly announced to his supervisory board.

About the “job shock”, for example, “Bild” writes, whereas the “Welt” praises: “Volkswagen’s efficiency course is absolutely correct.” Works council chief Daniela Cavallo walled herself and others in with a denial: “A reduction of 30,000 jobs – that would be in of Volkswagen AG every fourth – is absurd and has no basis. ”

And then there is the Kremlin-critical, Nobel Peace Prize-winning Russian journalist Dmitri Muratov, 59, threatened by Vladimir Putin, patron of this country. “If he covers himself with the Nobel Prize as if with a protective shield in order to violate Russian laws, then he does it consciously,” he said of the editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Novaya Gazeta”: If he does not violate Russian laws and gives no reason to “To declare him a ‘foreign agent’, then he will not either”.

Muratov reacts with a spirit of contradiction: “The state can do what it wants, but we will receive the award, we will not forego the award.” He will also dedicate the award to the journalists who were killed in his newspaper – including Anna Politkovskaya and Natalja Estemirova. The Kremlin had previously congratulated Muratov on his honor.

I wish you a happy day.

I warmly greet you
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Hans-Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor

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