One day before Chancellor Olaf Scholz met with trade unions and employer representatives in the Chancellery, DGB boss Yasmin Fahimi called for a third relief package with an energy price cap for basic electricity and gas requirements and spoke out against an increase in the CO2 price in 2023.
"We expect a third relief package from politicians, specifically for those who don't have a job: pensioners, students, the unemployed," Fahimi told Bild am Sonntag.
"We urgently need an energy price cap for private households."
As far as the design of such a price cap is concerned, Fahimi already has concrete ideas.
Fahimi: "A basic requirement for electricity and gas is set for every adult and every child. There is a price guarantee for this number of kilowatt hours. For energy that someone uses in excess of this, they have to pay more. That would not only be a really effective incentive to save energy, but also a significant relief, especially for households with a small income."
With this model, a single person in a 120 square meter apartment would benefit significantly less than a family of three in an 80 square meter apartment.
At the same time, Fahimi called for the planned CO2 pricing to be suspended.
"I don't think it makes sense to implement the planned increase in the price of CO2 next year because we are already at a price level that is much higher than all the original plans."