From October 1st at the latest, things will get expensive: from this point in time, possibly as early as the beginning of September, gas suppliers should be able to pass on the majority of their higher purchasing costs to consumers.

Julia Loehr

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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There has been a lively discussion since Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) announced a corresponding levy on Friday in connection with the rescue of the energy company Uniper.

To what extent can private households be burdened – and how should those who cannot cope with the expected price increases on their own be helped?

For the SPD parliamentary group, the expansion of housing benefits announced by Scholz is not enough.

The Social Democrats are calling for a de facto ban on evicting tenants with payment difficulties.

Those who cannot pay back operating costs or higher monthly installments should be protected from termination for a certain period of time.

It is not yet clear how long this time should be, sometimes half a year is brought into play.

Prerequisite: The tenants would have to “make credible” the connection between the increase in energy costs and the non-payment.

In such cases, there should be interest-free loans for landlords.

To do this, however, they should prove that the lower income represents “unreasonable hardship”.

Nobody should be turned off the gas

According to the will of the SPD deputies, electricity or gas cuts should also be excluded, and a hardship fund should settle outstanding bills if necessary.

In addition to the increase in housing allowance and heating subsidies for students and trainees that Scholz has already announced, the MPs are also calling for unspecified financial support for other “particularly affected” tenants.

The German Tenants' Association is also calling for a moratorium on terminations.

Such a thing had already existed at the beginning of the corona pandemic - a decision that the CDU/CSU and SPD had fought for at the time.

Even in the traffic light coalition, the proposals of the SPD, which is traditionally located on the side of the tenants, should not simply go through.

Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) is responsible for tenancy law.

The housing policy spokesman for the Liberals in the Bundestag made a proposal on Monday that aims in a different direction than that of the SPD parliamentary group.

Daniel Föst wants to make the interest-free loan available directly to those who cannot pay their bills: the tenants or, in the case of owner-occupied properties, the owners.

This makes more sense, he argues.

Landlords should not be held liable for the energy debts of their tenants.

"The polluter pays principle for energy costs must remain decisive," demands Föst.

The CDU was against the rental price cap, but is in favor of a gas price cap

A gas price cap is also being debated.

The German Tenants' Association and the German Federation of Trade Unions call for one.

The Union, which once went to the Federal Constitutional Court against the Berlin rent cap, also finds a state-capped gas price worth considering.

Specifically, Jens Spahn, the parliamentary group leader responsible for economic issues, proposes that households should only pay 6.5 cents for the first 5,000 kilowatt hours – which would correspond to the 2021 level.

Gas suppliers are currently calling for amounts of more than 20 cents per kilowatt hour in new contracts.

Economists warn, however, that such a price cap could reduce the incentive to save on gas.

Instead, the SPD energy politician Nina Scheer and the Düsseldorf economist Jens Südekum promote a bonus if a household demonstrably saves energy.

Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) rejects this.

The high gas prices are enough of an incentive to save, he says.

Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) insisted once again on Monday that a tax reform in the coming year should generally dampen the consequences of inflation.

Anyone who is worried that the domestic gas supplier could reduce deliveries in winter at the behest of politicians can rest easy.

"An active throttling of the delivery quantities to household customers by the network operator or supplier is technically not possible," writes the German Association of Gas and Water Specialists.

The background is that the lines must always have a certain pressure.

Even completely separating individual customers from the gas flow is hardly feasible.

"A complete shutdown of individual household customers or network sections would be very expensive in itself and would result in a time-consuming and logistically extremely complex restart."