Do you already know how much the state will relieve you of in view of the exploding prices – especially for energy? No? No wonder, especially in view of the confusing number of relief packages that have been put together and will be put together in the future.
It is good that the federal government is spending billions to alleviate the financial burden on citizens. What is not good, however, is that in the meantime a tangle of relief has emerged that seems pieced together and is hardly conclusive in itself. That people who need support in certain areas, such as pensioners, don’t get it. And others, who are not necessarily in need, benefit, for example, from the recently reduced VAT on the so-called gas levy.
What follows from this is just as ugly: no one understands the back and forth in the gas surcharge, for which consumers were first asked to pay, only to then be relieved again. It is difficult to understand why such a levy – which in itself makes sense – is thought up only to then be realized that the VAT makes the project even more expensive. In order to alleviate this and lower the tax, this would have had to be agreed in advance (!) with the EU Commission – which was neglected.
It is also not good that it is still unclear who has to pay this surcharge and who doesn’t, because this is not clearly regulated in the Energy Security Act.
And so we now have “structural relief” and “one-off payments” such as heating subsidy, energy price flat rate, child bonus. Some that are being phased out, such as the fuel discount and 9-euro ticket, and others that will last longer, such as the increase in the employee allowance and the expanded loss account, and others that are planned – such as the integration of heating cost subsidies into housing benefit. And why this confused cacophony? Because each of the three traffic light partners wants to put their own stamp on the relief packages.
The result is that for millions of people, financial hardship is undoubtedly cushioned – but the overview is also lost. After all, who knows what they will get when, how and for how long? No one. Neither private households nor companies can calculate on this basis, estimate what they can still afford.
Crisis management should be clear and create trust. The relief bazooka of the traffic light does not create either. Despite the billions that the federal government is spending, one feeling still dominates: being burdened.
“Kick-off Politics” is WELT’s daily news podcast. The most important topic analyzed by WELT editors and the dates of the day. Subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music or directly via RSS feed.
