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Stöcken power plant in Lower Saxony: the high energy costs are a problem for many companies
Photo: Julian Stratenschulte / dpa
Many companies are struggling with the current economic situation.
Since mid-July, companies have submitted more than 3,200 applications to the federal government for grants for increased energy costs.
This emerges from a response from the Federal Ministry of Economics to a request from the CDU MP Julia Klöckner.
The request relates to grants from the so-called energy cost containment program (EKDP), with which the federal government wants to protect particularly energy- and trade-intensive companies from bankruptcy in the current crisis.
The subsidy program – EKDP for short – started on July 15 after the EU had given the green light.
Accordingly, Germany can support energy-intensive companies with up to five billion euros in state aid.
The grants, which the companies do not have to repay, are intended to at least partially dampen cost increases.
The federal government wants to avoid bankruptcies in companies that consume a lot of energy, since prices have risen sharply in the wake of the war in Ukraine.
According to the response from the Ministry of Economics, which is available to the dpa, 586 companies have submitted a total of 3208 applications so far.
As of September 7, 2022, 2,548 companies were registered on the EKDP’s online portal.
"Due to the necessary verification of the evidence and the partly incomplete or incorrect applications", only 24 applications from 4 companies have been approved so far.
The companies could submit one application for each funding month.
To date, no refusals have been issued.
In the coming weeks, the ministry expects a "significant increase in these numbers," it said.
Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) announced this Thursday that he wanted to open the energy cost containment program to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The stipulation that a company has to do a lot of trading in order to profit should be dropped.
Medium-sized companies in particular would benefit from this, it was added from his ministry.
The support should not be limited to specific industries, said Habeck.
Criteria for benefiting from the aid could be, for example, the proportion of energy costs in the product or in sales.
ani/dpa
