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Photo: Sebastian Gollnow / DPA
The new shutdown hits the German economy.
But the federal government promises help.
It wants to reimburse all companies and self-employed persons affected by the shutdown in November for part of their sales or income.
The step represents a U-turn: So far, the policy in their rescue measures has mainly focused on granting existence-threatened companies a cost subsidy.
That helped, but not everyone.
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A performing artist, for example, hardly produces any costs, but he loses all income if he is banned from performing.
The previous instruments could not help him.
In this respect, the new regulation is a real improvement.
Nevertheless, it harbors a number of pitfalls, risks and side effects.
Experts from the ministries for economics and finance involved tried hard to avoid complications.
However, they were not finished until the appearance of Economics Minister Peter Altmaier (CDU) and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) on Thursday afternoon before the federal press conference.
The devil is in the details, admitted an officer involved.
Who gets the money - and who doesn't?
For example, it becomes difficult to define who should be compensated and who should not.
Identifying those directly affected should still be relatively easy.
A hotel specializing in tourists that closes in November should have no trouble applying for help.
According to the will of the federal government, however, those indirectly affected should also be considered.
But where is the line?
It may be that the hotel laundry can also claim lost sales because it depends on its orders.
But the butcher, who delivers cold cuts and smeared sausages for the breakfast buffet, doesn't get a chance because he has other customers.
It does not take prophetic gifts to predict that a number of decisions about aid will end up in court.
How is the aid calculated?
In principle, companies with up to 50 employees should be reimbursed 75 percent of their lost sales, companies with more employees 58 percent, but a maximum of three million euros.
However, there are complications with the provision of the aid package, according to which the comparative value for the reimbursements should be the sales or income of November 2019.
But what about those who had no sales at the time?
Politicians have also made provisions for them.
Anyone who did not have any income in those weeks, for example as a self-employed solo entertainer, whose engagement on a cruise ship had expired in the previous month, can use the average income of the previous year.
Per week of lockdown, he can estimate a fifty-second of his previous year's sales.
Newly self-employed people are also catered for.
A freelance concert pianist who only started his solo career at the beginning of the year can use the sales from October of this year as the basis for calculating his compensation payments.
It becomes a bit confusing when a company receives additional support in addition to the reimbursement of sales.
Then the aids are offset against each other.
If the tourism hotel has already applied for short-time allowance for its workforce in our example, the sales reimbursement will be reduced by this amount.
It can hardly be expected that aid, even if it is given quickly, will flow unbureaucratically.
Does the EU approve the aid?
In their plans, Altmaier and Scholz have to overcome a traditional hurdle: European state aid law.
The EU Commission is regularly very sensitive when the member states prepare to support their economy.
She suspects that during the crisis many governments are taking the opportunity to give their companies undue advantages over those from other Member States.
Altmaier and Scholz are confident that they will meet the requirements from Brussels.
What does it all cost?
The costs of the project seem incalculable.
The range of seven to ten billion euros that Finance Minister Scholz named in negotiations with the federal states on Wednesday indicate considerable uncertainties.
As a basis for the calculations, Scholz 'experts used the sales of the sectors affected by the closure in 2018. The Federal Statistical Office, which the officials asked for help with their calculations, could not provide more recent figures.
In this respect, the information about the costs is the result of an approximate calculation.
Even if the project should cost the federal government even more, the ministry assures that it would not go beyond the financial framework of this year.
The 218 billion euros that Scholz will be allowed to take out in 2020 in new debts is still a long way from exhausting.
A further supplementary budget therefore seems unnecessary.
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