Ironically, the Liberals want to intervene in the market.
(Photo: dpa)
The traffic light coalition wants to spend almost six billion euros in tax money to relieve commuters and transporters in the country. But just as fuel prices have long been falling again, the state-imposed discount battle at petrol stations and ticket machines for buses and trains, known as the “relief package”, turns out to be a balloon that will run out of air before it even causes any amazement can.
The coalition has taken up the cause of reducing the energy tax on petrol and diesel by 30 and 14 cents respectively. The mineral oil companies are supposed to lower the fuel prices by that amount. However, the draft by the Federal Minister of Finance shows that a discount by law is unrealistic in a market economy.
This realization by the coalition partners is at best the most recent, but not the most dramatic, about the energy grab bag. It seems much worse that the Liberals of all people came up with the fuel and ticket discounts, even though they stand for the market like no other party. But it is now Christian Lindner and Volker Wissing, as traffic light ministers, who undermine the most important control instrument of the market, the price, as soon as it swings upwards. Finance Minister Lindner looked at the prices at the gas station – and because this was difficult to justify in times of climate change and could not be sold to the Greens, Transport Minister Wissing organized a lookup at the bus and train station.
Short-term madness, long-term damage
At the same time, fossil fuels had become more expensive, making local transport cheaper in relative terms. Possibly one or the other would have changed in the metropolises. In the liberal logic, price subsidies are now supposed to influence behavior – with no guarantee that the money will actually reach the consumer.
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Added to this short-term madness is long-term damage. The government cuts taxes on energy prices without knowing whether the brief price shock will really affect consumers. Germans spend less than four percent of their income on fuel.
The government had a chance to set people up for higher fossil fuel prices. The hoped-for rethinking that the self-proclaimed progressive coalition wants to achieve with the increasing CO2 tax might have come about. But the message is: everything stays the same as it always was.
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