Countries rage over the relief package: will the Scholz plan be torpedoed?
Söder threatens to veto the vote
Created: 09/18/2022, 06:09
By: Andreas Schmid
Markus Söder is not yet convinced of the Scholz government's new relief package.
© IMAGO / Political Moments
Olaf Scholz needs the Federal Council for his relief package.
Some states like Bavaria are threatening to veto it.
"We have never been treated so badly," says Markus Söder.
Berlin – The traffic light wants to support the population with a third relief package.
The federal government is convinced of the new rules, which now also benefit pensioners and students.
"We'll get through it," assures Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The federal states and individual unions see it differently.
The criticism of the traffic light is getting louder, and a special summit on the relief package is even planned for the end of September.
Relief package: Söder angry – the first countries are threatening not to agree
The 16 federal states are in the Scholz cabinet on the matter: There is no question for them that the people in the state need help due to rising energy prices and inflation.
However, the nature of the aid is met with incomprehension.
The dispute is mainly about the payment of the billions and the tightly timed implementation.
The first federal states are already threatening not to agree in the Bundesrat.
Then the relief package would go to the conciliation committee, which could delay the payout.
Probably at the expense of the citizens.
One of the harshest critics is Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder.
"In its current form, the relief package cannot be approved," he told
Welt am Sonntag
.
"Never before have the federal states been treated as badly by a federal government as they are today."
The third relief package
At the beginning of September, the traffic light coalition presented a third package of measures to compensate for the rapidly rising prices, the extent of which the government put at around 65 billion euros.
The measures include, for example, one-off payments for pensioners and students and a price cap for basic energy requirements.
The coalition is also aiming for a successor to the nationwide 9-euro ticket at a price of 49 to 69 euros a month - if the federal states help finance it.
Traffic light criticism also from the SPD and the Greens: "It can't be"
The fact that CSU boss Söder publicly attacks the red-green-yellow federal government is nothing new.
Union faction leader Friedrich Merz (CDU) also regularly criticizes the traffic light, including the relief package.
Headwind is now also coming from the coalition parties.
Bremen's Mayor Andreas Bovenschulte, himself an SPD politician, called for the traffic lights to be "significantly improved".
Saarland boss Anke Rehlinger, also SPD, criticized the successor to the nine-euro ticket from the FDP-led transport department.
"It cannot be that Transport Minister Volker Wissing only takes part in a price signal, and then it's done for him with public transport." Local transport must not only be cheap, "but also be available in many areas".
Baden-Württemberg's Green Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann spoke of "unbearable" costs and this week also announced a possible blockade in the state chamber.
Other Prime Ministers such as NRW boss Hendrik Wüst (CDU) complained that they were supposed to bear part of the cost of the package, but had not been asked beforehand.
Some of the heads of the 16 federal states, half of whom come from the SPD, seem frustrated.
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How many prime ministers do the parties in Germany have?
SPD (8) | Berlin, Brandenburg, Bremen, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland |
union (6) | Bavaria, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein |
Green (1) | Baden-Wuerttemberg |
Left (1) | Thuringia |
Relief package: No short-term crisis summit - special meeting at the end of September
Apparently, the federal states would have liked to discuss their concerns with the Federal Chancellor.
As Die
Welt
reports, some heads of government pushed for a short-term prime ministerial conference on Thursday in Berlin.
Because of the Federal Council meeting on Friday, many state representatives were in the capital the evening before anyway.
Scholz should have attended, but the Chancellery declined.
Apparently due to deadlines.
Two weeks after the required meeting, however, there is to be a special summit on the relief package.
The main item on the agenda is the question of costs, as confirmed by government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit.
However, the summit is not scheduled for September 28th.
Until then, the criticism of the traffic light should not become quieter.
Especially since this does not only come from politics.
Relief package: German trade union federation criticizes traffic light package
The German trade union federation also has something to complain about in the relief package.
The plans don't go far enough for the DGB.
"We cannot absorb this crisis, cushion it with collective wages alone," said DGB boss Yasmin Fahimi on Thursday in the ARD "Morgenmagazin".
The water is up to people's necks "well into the middle of the normal workforce".
In conversation with the
world
, she now called for a different focus.
"The traffic light coalition would be better advised to agree on a few, but all the more extensive measures." The government should also focus more on what private households and companies need in the medium term in order to get through the crisis over a longer period of time come.
A lot of fuss about the relief package before the population can even benefit from it.
(as)
