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Uniper coal-fired power plant
Photo: Kai Pfaffenbach / REUTERS
In the struggle for a possible complete takeover of the gas supplier Uniper, the federal government is apparently largely in agreement with the previous main owner Fortum.
As Uniper announced on Tuesday, the amended rescue package includes a capital increase of eight billion euros.
In addition, the federal government is to buy the Uniper shares currently held by Fortum.
"As a result, it is envisaged that the federal government will thus receive a significant majority stake in Uniper," says the statement,
The former E.on subsidiary Uniper is the most important gas importer for Germany and has had an existential crisis in recent months.
Uniper has long-term delivery obligations to its customers, such as municipal utilities.
Because Russia has delivered less gas month by month since the invasion of Ukraine, traders have to buy the gas they need at high prices on the spot market.
Gas allocation problem
The federal government had already taken a stake of almost 30 percent in Uniper in July to prevent the group from collapsing.
Since no more gas is now flowing through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, the situation at Uniper has worsened again.
The federal government has therefore been negotiating a complete takeover with the Finnish Fortum group for several weeks.
The subject of the negotiations was also a loan worth billions: Last winter, Fortum granted the Uniper Group a credit line of EUR 7.5 billion, which has now been almost completely utilized.
Fortum does not want to give up this money.
Clauses in the loan agreements apparently lead to the loans becoming due in the event of a change of ownership (»change of control«).
In negotiating circles it is said that the federal government wants to replace the credit line promptly.
For Habecks, however, this now creates another serious problem: If the federal government takes over a majority in Uniper, the gas surcharge in the form planned so far would probably violate the financial constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany.
According to lawyers, it is not permissible to finance state-owned companies by means of a levy, and experts in Habeck's ministry apparently agree.
There are "doubts about the financial constitution" about the levy, Habeck is said to have said internally.
Reclassifying the levy as a special levy, i.e. a kind of tax, would be tricky.
Special levies must meet strict requirements that would not be met in the case of a surcharge.
It could be the foreseeable end of the levy.
The SPD parliamentary group also considers this to be increasingly questionable.
The newly appointed gas expert commission must now get started quickly in order to present "a concept from a single source by October at the latest," according to Matthias Miersch, vice-chairman of the SPD parliamentary group.
»The gas allocation will certainly also be put to the test.
Constitutional concerns are not easy to ignore and they will not diminish if Uniper is eventually nationalized.«
According to SPIEGEL information, the Federal Ministry of Economics is still working on the design of the gas levy, and above all on the solution that no companies will receive the levy that are not doing badly economically.
According to government circles, this process is continuing in parallel with the fiscal constitutional review.