The tale of Hercules and the Stable of Augeas is a heroic tale that stinks to high heaven. At least in Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s version. Hercules is given the task of ridding the city of Elis of dirt. Because in Elis the crap is high – so high that it has buried the art treasures on which the city’s national pride is based.
But even before Hercules can get to work, Elis’ parliamentarians have doubts. What if there is nothing under all the dirt, if the art treasures don’t even exist? And so ancient Elian politics does what politicians still do today when the shit gets too high: they set up a commission.
A gas commission is now to work out on behalf of the traffic light coalition how a price brake can be designed that relieves citizens and business and at the same time helps them to save energy. The structure of the gas price brake is still open, but at least its financing has been clarified: the government is providing up to 200 billion euros by reviving the economic stabilization fund set up during the Corona period. It is separate from the regular federal budget, so that Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner can continue to say: The debt brake is in place.
There is definitely a touch of Elis blowing through the Berlin government district. First a supplementary budget, with which 60 billion euros of unclaimed corona aid was repotted into the federal climate fund (an approach that Lindner, as an opposition politician, declared “not serious”), then a special fund of 100 billion euros for the Bundeswehr and now the 200 billion euro defense shield.
Even if these 360 billion euros are not formally included in the regular federal budget, the government is entering into real obligations. To stay with the Elian metaphor: if someone were to clear out the mess, they would find a huge mountain of debt under the dung. In contrast to Elis, however, no one has the intention of cleaning up properly at the traffic lights.
