Germany: the government reviews its gas tax project
Green Economy Minister Robert Habeck is under fire from critics over his proposed gas tax.
(illustrative image) REUTERS - LISI NIESNER
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
Berlin will have to review its copy of the gas tax.
The government, criticized about its new solidarity levy intended to avoid bankruptcies of energy companies, admitted that the device had flaws and wishes to better target the beneficiary companies.
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Green Economy Minister Robert Habeck has been under pressure since announcing a special solidarity levy in mid-August to prevent the bankruptcy of gas importers and distributors, some of whom have faced serious difficulties since the drastic drop Russian gas deliveries.
The money is intended to relieve companies that have to buy gas on the spot market where prices have exploded.
This surcharge, from October 1, will increase the bill for German households by several hundred euros.
Twelve companies in the energy sector have requested to benefit from the payment of this levy for a sum totaling around 34 billion euros.
Among them, giants in difficulty like Uniper, which narrowly escaped bankruptcy this summer, thanks to a rescue plan knitted in extremis by Berlin.
Linked to its customers by long-term contracts, Uniper is one of those energy companies obliged to supply the quantities planned at the negotiated rates, while supplying itself on a market that has gone crazy.
But among the candidates for the solidarity fund, there are also a number of companies which, on the contrary, have benefited from the explosion in gas prices with the war in Ukraine, recalls our correspondent in Berlin,
Nathalie Versieux
.
It is “
certainly not correct that companies which have made crazy money, come and say '
yes, and for the few losses of income that we have suffered, we are asking for the help of the population (...)
'
” , acknowledged Robert Habeck, under fire from critics.
Because this situation has generated in recent days a controversy about the inequity of the device, including within the coalition of the social democrat Olaf Scholz with the ecologists and the liberals.
The government, which has planned to ease the impact of the surcharge by lowering the VAT on gas and increasing aid to the most modest, wants to calm things down as the far left and the far right announce separate demonstrations against rising energy prices.
(and with AFP)
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