On September 1st, the benefits for consumers from the tank discount and the 9-euro ticket will end. In order to continue to cushion the exploding energy prices, Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) recently announced a “massive package for relief across the board”.
It should be “tailor-made and precise”, added Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD). Exactly what it entails is still in the stars, and the opposition is already criticizing the traffic light government for apparently wanting to stick to the controversial gas levy and for not making a decision on nuclear power extension in sight.
“No strategy in the energy crisis?” Maybrit Illner asked her talk show on ZDF on Thursday evening in view of the vague announcements. In the studio, Green Party leader Ricarda Lang and FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr discussed with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leihen (CDU), climate activist Luisa Neubauer, NRW Health Minister Karl Josef Laumann (CDU) and journalist Eva Quadbeck.
“Is the disenchantment of Robert Habeck taking place from poster boy to goof boy?” Illner wanted to know from Quadbeck at the start. Yes, the economics minister made “gross technical errors” in the implementation of the gas surcharge, the journalist judged. Well-known colleagues at the FDP and SPD also acknowledged this with glee, which shows that there is “a lot of jerking” in the traffic light coalition.
“The coalition comes too late with this relief package,” said Quadbeck, which Ricarda Lang saw differently. With the first two relief packages, the coalition has shown that it can do it. “We will provide answers to this social crisis this week. For me, direct payments for autumn and winter are important, as is connection to the 9-euro ticket.”
The connected Christian Dürr praised the “most uncomplicated public transport ticket in Europe”. You have to build on that, even if it cannot stay at nine euros permanently.
The FDP parliamentary group leader also announced tax breaks: “The high inflation requires that you start with the tax. The idea of inflation compensation in the tax system ensures that relief reaches people directly.”
But which people in Germany need help most urgently? Karl Josef Laumann called for targeted relief for people who had previously lived at the limit with their wages. “That’s 850,000 people in NRW. Too little was done for them in the first relief packages,” he complained. “I would have expected a government to give more consideration to the people who are hardworking and just making ends meet,” Laumann continued.
For Luisa Neubauer, the message that had to come from the current energy crisis was clear. One must draw conclusions from the “catastrophic mismanagement in energy policy” in recent years. “Where is the government that promises us that this is the last winter that will be so hard because we are moving away from fossil fuels,” asked the Fridays for Future activist.
“If you can now build LNG terminals at the speed of light, then you can also build renewables just as quickly. That must be the big message that this is now being treated as an emergency,” she said at Illner. Lang agreed. “The current high costs are not costs for climate protection. On the contrary. Because renewable energies have not been expanded and we have become dependent on fossil energies, we are in this situation. The road to independence is renewable energy”
However, Lang would not placate Neubauer. “Even when parts of the government want to get started, other parts continuously infiltrate and boycott it. The Greens have to ask themselves whether they want to save the coalition climate or the world climate,” she said in the direction of Lang, and also specifically targeted the work of Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP).
Ursula von der Leyen, who was only briefly connected from Brussels, warned that the situation had not yet eased despite well-stocked gas storage facilities. “We have to expect every day that Putin will completely shut down the gas,” she told Illner. It is important to throttle certain industries. “We always have to prepare for the worst case scenario. The goal is that we get through the winter, that Putin can no longer blackmail us and that Ukraine wins this war.”
