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Franziska Giffey and Henrik Wüst during the press conference after the country heads' meeting
Photo: Bernd von Jutrczenka / dpa
The federal states are demanding a quick energy price cap for electricity, gas and heat.
The federal government must agree on this quickly, said the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hendrik Wüst, after a conference of state leaders who had discussed the planned third relief package against the consequences of the energy crisis.
In the decision of the federal states, which is available to SPIEGEL, it is called for, among other things, to focus the relief “as far as possible on lower and middle incomes”, but also for an “effective industrial policy concept to strengthen the international competitiveness of German business and industry and to secure of jobs« to develop.
Wüst wants fair burden sharing
Before the talks with Chancellor Olaf Scholz planned for next Tuesday, Wüst called for a fair sharing of the burden between the federal and state governments.
The federal states are ready for constructive cooperation with the federal government in order to get people and the economy through the winter well.
Berlin's Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey said that the unanimous agreement on the joint demand for an energy price cap was a "groundbreaking decision" by the state leaders.
In view of the current crisis, a »policy of national unity« is necessary.
According to Giffey, the country heads did not agree when it came to financing the relief.
"That's where we couldn't quite agree," Giffey said.
Disagreement on the debt brake
In particular, the question of whether new loans can be taken out for financing beyond the limitation of the debt brake "we could not finally clarify." The SPD-led states had made a protocol statement and explicitly advocated such a possibility.
The special conference of the prime ministers was originally intended to be the prelude to subsequent federal-state talks.
Because of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's corona infection, the joint round has now been postponed to October 4th.
svs/dpa
