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Steel mill in Duisburg
Photo: Marc-Steffen Unger
The parties of the old or possible new government show little or no interest in coming to terms with the ten billion euro scandal surrounding the alleged abuse of the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) and in getting the money back for consumers cheated by industrial groups.
The Union and the SPD, who are responsible for the loophole in the law and who enforced a far-reaching amnesty for large corporations such as Bayer, Evonik, Currenta, Daimler and Thyssenkrupp during their reign, are persistently silent. This week the SPD elected a lawyer from BBH, a law firm involved in the affair, to be the president of its business forum. The FDP is also silent, but apparently indicated in talks in Berlin that, in their opinion, the industry is already burdened with excessive taxes.
Only the Greens are at least thinking about whether the EEG surcharge saved by the industry through dubious tricks can still be recovered and credited to electricity customers who had to bear higher EEG loads as a result of the trickery. One has lawyers check whether the amnesty paragraph anchored by the old government in the EEG could be overturned, it is said in the environment of the energy policy spokesman, Oliver Krischer. The tendency to burden the coalition negotiations with this sensitive issue is not pronounced, despite the high sum of ten billion euros, even among the Greens.
Last week, SPIEGEL reported that, with the knowledge of the German government, companies had avoided paying the EEG surcharge with questionable models for many years.
Specifically, it was about the so-called disk lease model.
Companies lease parts of power plants (panes) and thus become co-owners of these power plants with the help of ingenious contracts on paper.
The generation and use of electricity for your own production is exempt from the EEG tax.
When the matter was exposed and billions in arrears were threatened, some corporations successfully pushed for an amnesty.
Consumer advocates are calling for relief for the overreached electricity customers.
The corporations insist on the legitimacy of their models.
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