New dispute over CO2 heating surcharge

Union chancellor candidate Laschet causes a stir with statements about landlords.

An old conflict comes up again.

Does the CDU boss mean it seriously or is it just a "smoke candle"?

Berlin - Aren't tenants left sitting on the additional CO2 costs for heating after all?

So far, resistance in the CDU / CSU parliamentary group has prevented the landlords from participating.

Now, however, Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet comes on the scene: "The current solution that the landlord does virtually nothing will not last," said Laschet in the ARD "summer interview".

But whether something else will happen before the election seems questionable.

That's what it's all about: Since the beginning of the year, a CO2 price in the transport and heating sector has made fossil fuels such as oil and gas more expensive.

For the apartment, this means that heating with an old oil heater, for example, becomes more expensive.

The CO2 price is currently 25 euros per ton and will rise in the coming years.

As the Check24 portal has calculated, the CO2 price of 25 euros for a family with a rented apartment and consumption of 1000 liters of heating oil per year results in additional costs of almost 79 euros.

A family with a house has to pay about twice as much.

Mainly at the insistence of the SPD, the black-red federal government agreed on a compromise in May: In future, landlords should bear half of the cost of the CO2 heating surcharge.

Then, however, the veto came from the Union faction, which did not want to participate.

Reason: Landlords are not the "cause" of heating costs, the "polluter pays" principle should not be violated.

For a long time nothing was heard from Laschet in the debate.

Now he said on ARD that a solution was needed that would do justice to both.

He also pointed out that landlords are often people who have a single house.

"That is their old-age provision and that is why it has to be solved in a socially fair manner."

The SPD reacted skeptically on Monday. Group Vice Sören Bartol, told the German Press Agency: “I do not trust Armin Laschet on the way. We could have divided up the additional costs fairly long ago. Until recently, the real estate lobbyists within the CDU parliamentary group fought a fair division. ”The Union ministers were also in favor of a 50/50 division. “I wonder where Armin Laschet has been in the last few months. And where this change of heart suddenly comes from. For me it's nothing more than a smoke candle, ”says Bartol. “The real politics of the Union shows: Armin Laschet has nothing left for tenants, they are alone on the costs. His CDU is responsible for this. "

The German Tenants' Association demanded that those responsible in the Union parliamentary group should correct their blockade. President Lukas Siebenkotten said: "We urge you to live up to your climate and social responsibility in this area and to cooperate constructively immediately in the implementation of the compromise that has been found." Pricing retroactively from January 2021. The intended steering effect towards more environmentally friendly heating systems can only be achieved with the landlord.

The owners' association Haus & Grund, which criticized Laschet, sees it completely differently. "It would be wrong to relax the polluter-pays principle for the CO2 price in tenancy law," said Gerold Happ, member of the federal management board of the German Press Agency. "Landlords have no influence on the heating behavior and hot water consumption of tenants." Both are decisive for CO2 emissions and the resulting costs. Consequently, the CO2 price must also reach the tenants in order to develop a steering function.

Landlords would still feel pressure to modernize, according to Happ. “Because prospective tenants always make their rental decision based on the warm total rent. The more expensive heating becomes, the less tenants will ask for apartments with high heating costs. In the future, landlords will modernize energetically in order to be able to survive on the market, or they will have to lower the basic rent. ”In order to relieve the tenants, state income from the CO2 pricing should be repaid in the form of climate money that is the same for every citizen. dpa