According to Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), no one in need should be left behind in the federal government's planned third relief package.
"We have made it our goal to ensure that everyone who needs support is supported," Scholz said in an MDR interview on Thursday evening.
In addition to families, pensioners and students, tax relief should also be given to those "who earn money but still have to calculate," said the Chancellor.
Scholz assured the companies that short-time work would remain an instrument of crisis management.
“Short-time work can currently be used and the Minister of Labor has already said that we will also ensure that it can continue to be used,” said the Chancellor.
SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert expects the traffic light coalition to agree on new relief soon.
The impatience of the population is "totally understandable", in a few days the new relief package will be on the table, he told the "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung".
Termination moratorium on leases
It was always clear that the 9-euro ticket for regional transport and the tank discount will initially expire at the end of August.
"It is therefore all the more important that the third relief package should ideally be announced before the hammer falls next Thursday," said Kühnert.
What is needed are “considerable and well-targeted relief, and it will come”.
Last but not least, the commuters deserve quick answers as to how things will continue from September, said the SPD general secretary.
Despite resistance from the FDP, the SPD wants to continue fighting for an excess profit tax.
"The SPD in its entirety is in favor of fair participation by accidental crisis profiteers in order to cushion the equally accidental burdens on private households and industry," said Kühnert.
The package is not just about money, explained Kühnert.
“We can also provide more security without spending a euro for it: a moratorium on terminating leases, avoiding electricity and gas cuts in winter, greater tenant protection in the event of rent increases: All these measures cost the federal government nothing, but would benefit many People take at least some of their existential worries," said the SPD politician, adding: "We not only need financial relief, but also mental relief."
In view of persistent inflation and high energy prices, the federal government has already passed two so-called relief packages this year.
First, the EEG levy was abolished and a heating subsidy for housing benefit recipients and tax breaks were decided.
The second package included the 9-euro ticket for regional transport, the fuel discount, the energy flat-rate of 300 euros for employees subject to income tax, a one-time payment of 100 euros per child and 200 euros for recipients of social benefits.