Nobody sheds a tear after the gas levy.
Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) hoped to the last that it would make taxpayers' money unnecessary.
But now the federal government is buying into Uniper for billions, and it is becoming increasingly clear that the gas price brake and the help for customers will not come about without Lindner.
He could book that through special budgets.
In return, the FDP demands from the rest of the traffic light an expansion of the energy supply over longer running times of nuclear and coal-fired power plants and through the tapping of gas reserves.
The latter – for which there is a separate memory allocation – should only be used very carefully.
It is true, however, that the state has an obligation, because through its mass purchases it drove up gas prices in the first place, which it now wants to limit.
And in any case, it is necessary to use all generation potentials, biogas and photovoltaics as well as nuclear and coal power.
The Greens may play for a while until the Lower Saxony elections on the Sunday after next.
But then the expansion of supply must finally come.