Before the start of the federal government’s cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Habeck emphasized that the gas levy was not a mistake.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) has announced the first steps towards revising the gas surcharge. Habeck only wants to pay out the levy to companies if the board does not collect any bonus payments. A ministry spokeswoman confirmed this to the Handelsblatt. “Anyone who can pay out bonuses doesn’t need any help,” she explained.
There had been considerable criticism of the gas levy in the past few days. Most of the money should go to companies in acute need, above all the energy company Uniper. But around three billion euros are to go to companies that are doing well economically in the next two and a half years.
With the levy, gas importers can pass on 90 percent of their additional costs resulting from Russian gas deliveries being canceled to consumers. From October, all gas customers should pay an additional 2.4 cents per kilowatt hour.
The levy was originally intended to support only troubled importers. But the current law does not allow this.
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Habeck and his officials are now working on narrowing down the recipient group. The coalition partner demands more than the bonus waiver. “The coupling of the gas surcharge to a bonus waiver by the gas companies is more of a table firework than the hoped-for course correction,” said Reinhard Houben, economic policy spokesman for the FDP, the Handelsblatt.
The companies could easily move the bonuses that are no longer available this year to the next and thus continue to benefit from the allocation. “This measure does little to remedy the technical errors in the gas surcharge,” criticized Houben.
More improvements in progress
The Düsseldorf economist Jens Südekum disagrees. “I believe that a few candidates will then voluntarily withdraw from the gas surcharge,” he said. Which board of directors would be happy to forego bonuses if the profit situation is right.
In any case, the Ministry of Economic Affairs has announced that it is working on further improvements to the gas surcharge. According to the ministry spokeswoman, importers should only receive money if they are “relevant to security of supply” and the volume of Russian gas deliveries that fail is significant. First the “time” had reported.
“The surcharge aims to stabilize the security of supply. But of course it was always intended for companies that are systemically important. The free riders were not meant. That’s why we want to readjust the allocation at this point,” said Habeck.
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He hasn’t gone into more detail yet. It was also not expected that the fundamental problems of the gas levy could be solved so quickly.
When designing the levy, the Federal Ministry of Economics had already tried to restrict the group of recipients to importers threatened with insolvency. In the first drafts of the law, it was still stated that the levy would only be paid to importers threatened with insolvency, coalition circles confirm.
The reason that the officials in the Federal Ministry of Economics had changed their minds at the time: legal difficulties. In particular, EU state aid law generally prohibits giving preference to individual companies when it comes to state measures. A “Lex Uniper” is therefore not possible with the gas levy, government circles have said in the past few days.
More on the topics of gas levy and Robert Habeck:
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However, state aid law allows exceptions under strict conditions. But Brussels would have to approve it. However, it is not clear whether the legal framework would allow this in the case of the apportionment and how quickly such a decision could be made.
Habeck indicated on Monday evening that he was hoping for speed from the EU Commission. At a panel discussion in the Ministry of Economics with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, she spoke about the need for greater dynamism in political processes when Habeck interjected that she would like this to be the case with the subject of state aid law.
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