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VW plant in Wolfsburg: Industry as a winner
Photo: imago images / Schöning
The coalition members are celebrating themselves. In long negotiations it was possible to achieve a breakthrough in the amendment of the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) over the weekend, the SPD cheered in a press release.
With the legislation, which is to be discussed in the economic committee this week and then brought by the Federal Council, "bureaucratic hurdles" would be removed and the EU's climate targets would be effectively supported, the Union rejoices.
There is no reason to be happy.
And this is not only because the results of the marathon negotiations fall far short of the demands and expectations of climate protectors and the energy industry.
The negotiators of the SPD and CDU have quietly abused the amendment to initiate a controversial amnesty for large energy-intensive corporations such as Evonik, the former Bayer subsidiary Covestro or Daimler.
It should protect the corporations from back payments in the high double-digit billions.
Even the lead Federal Ministry of Economics is critical of the amnesty.
A corresponding internal note states that it is pointed out that the regulation "harbors constitutional and state aid risks".
In addition, it is unclear whether the passage in question is "approved by the EU".
Resourceful consultants, windy constructions
The explosive point can be found well hidden on page 159 of the current draft law.
There it says in paragraph 104 that companies that have refused to pay billions of euros in the EEG surcharge in recent years with reference to the so-called disk lease model no longer have to fear being prosecuted for this.
Rather, they should be given the right to negotiate a settlement with the responsible transmission system operators that will exempt them from repayments if they pay the surcharge from September next year.
The bill should be paid by normal electricity consumers, medium-sized companies and traders.
Because the costs of building up renewable energies are passed on to all customers.
This is what the legislator intended when the EEG was introduced a good 20 years ago.
Exceptions were only a few companies that have always needed electricity in large quantities and that mostly produced it in their own power plants on the company premises for their own consumption.
A few large chemical companies, steel manufacturers or car manufacturers belonged to the elite circle.
And at first that didn't matter.
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But with the rapidly increasing EEG costs, the model became more and more attractive.
Resourceful consultants and law firms designed it using windy constructions so that companies could lease capacities or so-called disks from power plants of normal electricity suppliers or other service providers (disk lease).
At least on paper, they became self-sufficient and did not pay an EEG surcharge for the amount of electricity they purchased.
This approach has been a thorn in the side of the legislature for years.
Especially since it was expanded more and more.
Even hospitals and retail chains built their own disk lease models.
The industry lobby panicked
Therefore, there were always minor changes in the law.
Numerous small and medium-sized companies gave in and abolished their window leasing models.
But so far, no federal government has seriously dared to approach the large corporations.
For good reason: they would have to pay repayments for a period of up to 20 years.
The amounts would run into the billions and cause even major industry players such as Evonik to have financial difficulties, as the Association of the Chemical Industry (VCI) openly argues.
But the transmission system operators, who are responsible for offsetting the EEG surcharge, did not want to be satisfied with the pending situation and commissioned a law firm two years ago to examine the cases and, if necessary, to have them settled in court.
The processing of the cases was clear from the point of view of the lawyers: Several dozen companies could have wrongly saved high double-digit billions in EEG surcharges in the past few years, according to the result of their investigation.
In order to clarify this, they first brought several smaller cases before the indictment.
Most of the time, the courts ruled against the companies and ordered EEG repayments.
Panic grew among the big players in the industry.
Above all, the Association of the Chemical Industry increased its lobby pressure on the CDU and SPD and provided Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier (CDU) through the members of the Economic Committee and a Berlin law firm with drafts for changes to the law and amnesty regulations that were ready for printing.
While the working level of the ministry was able to defend itself against such an approach at the beginning of the year, the controversial regulation now seems to take the parliamentary hurdles.
The consumer is responsible for the damage
The damage it would do is immense.
For consumers, because they have to pay the price for the dubious window lease models through their electricity bills.
For hundreds of small companies that have discontinued their EEG savings models in recent years due to changes in the law and appeals and in some cases have even paid their levies retrospectively and now see that their honesty has not paid off.
For the rule of law, because a controversial legal issue is not fought out where it belongs, namely in the ordinary courts.
And even the companies that are now covered by the amnesty cannot really rejoice.
Because they do not have legal security with the law.
It is hard to imagine that this passage will not be legally challenged and that Brussels will simply wave through the controversial regulation.
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