Commentary on energy price policy: The traffic light risks a lot of discord

Created: 02/18/2022, 18:30

By: Georg Anastasiadis

Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) should reduce VAT on energy;

Commentary by Georg Anastasiadis, Editor-in-Chief of the Münchner Merkur.

© Michael Kappeler/dpa/Marcus sleep

What to do against the exploding energy prices?

The traffic light government must finally take the issue into account, otherwise Germans will lose interest in climate change.

A commentary by Georg Anastasiadis.

Munich - You have to be sitting on a well-paid board of directors post in the European Central Bank to overlook it: prices, especially energy prices, are galloping.

Unlike ECB boss Lagarde, politicians should not be indifferent when families can no longer afford vacations because the costs for heating and commuting to work are exploding.

And when people's enthusiasm for climate change wanes because the increase in energy prices - which is expressly desired politically - causes entire sections of the population to slip.

New Social Question: Skyrocketing Energy Prices

The traffic light government has so far overslept the explosiveness of the new social question, Corona and Ukraine were more important.

Now the coalition partners are outdoing each other with their ideas: a heating subsidy for the poor has been approved, and the EEG surcharge, which makes electricity more expensive, is to fall by mid-year.

The FDP is demanding a higher commuter allowance, and the Greens are demanding an energy allowance.

According to the wishes of the SPD, it should be paid on a graduated basis according to income.

There's still a lot to negotiate.

And a lot of discord is also programmed: According to Climate Minister Habeck, landlords should instead of their tenants pay the lion's share of the heating cost surcharges that come about as a result of CO2 pricing, depending on how well or badly an apartment is insulated.

Federal government earns from rising prices

This is based on the implicitly sweeping idea that landlords are always on the sunny side of life, but tenants are always creatures worthy of protection, regardless of their energy consumption habits.

While politicians are playing off groups of the population against each other and asking them to pay, the traffic light government wants to be left with its money bags.

Because the state adds value-added tax to the rising basic energy price, the Treasury earns a lot even when Putin turns on the gas tap.

However, the coalition does not even want to consider a temporary reduction in VAT.

That can't be her last word.