The dramatic images that went around the world from Ukraine on Wednesday put the relief that the traffic light coalition agreed on the evening before into perspective.

Fortunately, that doesn't make the package any smaller, even if other news dominates for good reasons.

It had been clear for a long time that the levy charged with the electricity bill to promote renewable energies was to be abolished by the middle of this year.

In the language of stockbrokers: That has long been priced into the coalition.

The situation is different when it comes to relieving long-distance commuters, for whom every stop at the gas station is like a regularly recurring nightmare.

For the Greens, the distance allowance was and is one of the worst things you can imagine, because drivers who have to travel long distances to work benefit from it.

Finance Minister Christian Lindner nevertheless gave a signal for the first time a good two weeks ago that the FDP wants to achieve more here.

He signaled that an increase in the commuter allowance would not fail because of him.

The approaching election in Saarland helped him to push this through.

The SPD there felt the importance of the topic, and later the federal party took it up.

So that not only drivers benefit, the coalition decided to increase the employee allowance and the basic income tax allowance as well.

In this way, a large part of the creeping additional burden is still compensated,

associated with the increased inflation, keyword cold progression.

And people in need have not been forgotten either: there are once again one-off payments for them.

The war fueled by Russia will have consequences that cannot be fully assessed the day after.

Only one thing seems certain at the moment: Energy costs will not fall any time soon, on the contrary.

The pressure that this puts on the general price level will remain correspondingly high.

So it is certainly not a mistake that the SPD, Greens and FDP decided to do more to relieve the burden on citizens and companies than initially thought.