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gas stove
Photo: Christopher Neundorf / Kirchner Media / IMAGO
When the SPD parliamentary group met last Tuesday, Chancellor Wolfgang Schmidt had to listen to a lot.
Many MPs have just returned to Berlin from their constituencies.
And they have brought back stories of desperate citizens that take some comrades' breath away.
There are reports about struggling companies and families struggling for their livelihoods, about people who no longer know how to pay their energy bills since the prices for electricity and gas have skyrocketed, sometimes many times over.
What the MPs are saying to Olaf Scholz's close confidante can be understood as an accusation, or at least as an urgent appeal: do something at last - and do it immediately.
"The government must now act even faster"
Matthias Mieves, a young member of parliament from Kaiserslautern, reported that day.
Never before has the group taken the floor.
Now he tells of a family that from now on has to spend almost the entire net salary of the father on gas, a clearly four-digit sum in euros.
He later told SPIEGEL that even adding up all the previous help, some families are still a long way from what they need "to get out of trouble and into a situation that is at least halfway manageable."
The matter is urgent, says Mieves, "the government must now act even faster."
What he means: The state should intervene – and, similar to what is planned for electricity, also limit gas prices.
It is clearly noticeable these days: The panic of autumn and winter is growing in politics, of the possible catastrophe that is rolling towards the already crisis-ridden country, of company bankruptcies, of private bankruptcies - even of outright deindustrialization.
So far, only a part of the people has felt the disaster that is looming.
Many have not yet received their new partial invoices, and sometimes the price jumps are still within limits because the providers have bought gas over the long term - i.e. even at more favorable times.
But this effect will not last long.
And then?
Although the situation on the markets has eased somewhat again, the gas prices quoted there are still many times higher than they were a few months ago.
A real trend reversal in the direction of halfway moderate costs is not in sight.
Only: The government has so far lacked a solid plan on how to avert the disaster.
interventions complicated
While the traffic light coalition has agreed in principle on an electricity price brake as part of its latest relief package, which at least secures a certain basic consumption at more favorable conditions, everything is still open when it comes to gas.
The reason: Interventions in the gas market are considered to be particularly complicated, and the government initially left the issue to a commission of experts.
The group met for the first time on Saturday.
However, the pressure to finally turn back prices is now so great that there seems to be hardly any way around it.
In the SPD parliamentary group, the demand for a cap has long been widespread, and the campaigning comrades in Lower Saxony, who would like to have positive news from Berlin before the vote on October 9th, are also pushing hard.
Green leader Omid Nouripour also said on Sunday: "Of course we also need a gas price cap." And FDP boss and finance minister Christian Lindner is now open to such a step: A gas price brake must lower prices, he told the "Bild am Sonntag".
You have to “quickly help everyone in an economy”.
Chancellor Scholz himself, who had often held back on the issue so far, said during his visit to Qatar: It is now a question of “how we can reduce the prices that are far too high”.
Who should pay?
But one thing is also clear: the state will face enormous costs if it really intervenes in the gas market.
According to an RND report, the state would have to inject 2.5 billion euros - just to lower the end consumer price per kilowatt hour by just one cent.
The question remains: who should pay for it?
Finance Minister Lindner still wants nothing to do with a relaxation of the debt brake.
"A gas price
brake
must be combined with long-term stable public finances," he said at the weekend.
»The debt brake for the federal budget is in place.«
In view of the gigantic challenges facing the republic, that sounds increasingly odd.
Especially since the FDP's allies are going off the rails when it comes to debt.
Social Democrats and Greens mostly consider the debt brake to be a mistake anyway.
In the meantime, however, resistance to fighting the crisis on credit is also crumbling in the Union.
How delicate the matter is can already be seen in the dispute over the gas levy, which is intended to save gas importers who can no longer afford the high purchase prices.
The plan is for consumers to pay about 2.4 cents more per kilowatt hour.
Another burden for groaning citizens and companies?
Many no longer consider this to be justifiable.
Finance Minister Lindner also noted via "Bild am Sonntag" that he was "more and more concerned with the question of economic sense" when it came to the levy.
In Robert Habeck's Ministry of Economics, there are still open "financial constitutional" questions.
Does the levy tip?
At the moment it looks more and more like it.
But even then it must be clarified who will ultimately pay for the rescue of the company.
Green leader Ricarda Lang formulated a biting message in the direction of the FDP chairman on Sunday: "The gas surcharge can go as soon as the Ministry of Finance shows a willingness for alternatives and this alternative is of course clear: financing stabilization from the budget."
controversy over nuclear power
In the end, the price catastrophe could tear down several certainties - both very current ones and those that have existed for a long time.
Because not only the gas surcharge and the debt brake could fall.
In any case, Lindner made it clear at the weekend that he wants to use the talks about capping gas prices to soften the Greens' anti-nuclear power stance.
"A gas price brake must be decided in combination with measures such as the extension of nuclear energy," said Lindner.
So the negotiations are likely to be tough.
Only: winter is approaching and with it the days when the heating is turned up.
So the government doesn't have much time.
Or as the SPD deputy Mieves says: "It is now important that we as a coalition implement the agreed things, and quickly."
