The Prime Ministers of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia, Stephan Weil (SPD) and Hendrik Wüst (CDU), have low expectations for the meeting with the federal government this Tuesday.

Immediately before the meeting of the Prime Ministers' Conference (MPK) with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and members of the federal government, Weil said that there could be "no final consultations", it was about an interim result.

Expectations should not be set too high.

Wüst said, "it is not to be expected that we will get a solution to all questions".

Eckhart Lohse

Head of the parliamentary editorial office in Berlin.

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The federal and state governments will primarily talk about the details of the planned energy price brakes, the division of financial tasks in the third relief package to mitigate the consequences of the Ukraine war and financing the stay of refugees.

The last point in particular is likely to lead to difficult negotiations.

In a draft decision available to the FAZ, it is said that the heads of government of the federal states are reminding the federal government of the April agreement that at the beginning of November a regulation should be made on the costs of accommodating refugees from Ukraine in the coming year.

This should also include the “uncovered costs” from this year, the paper says.

So far, the federal government has been reluctant to meet this demand from the federal states.

The prime ministers agree

After a preliminary meeting with the state leaders, Wüst said that all 16 went to the federal government “with one opinion”.

Wüst and Weil approved of the federal government's recent announcement that it would provide 200 billion euros to stabilize energy prices.

What relief will be derived from this is still open, said Weil, who took over the MPK chairmanship for the state of Lower Saxony on October 1st.

Wüst made a similar statement.

As far as the effects of the 200 billion package are concerned, it is still a bit of a "grab bag".

The Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) had previously warned of an insufficient result of the federal-state meeting.

It was good that the federal government announced at the end of last week that it would help with 200 billion euros, said Söder on Tuesday morning in Berlin.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) had announced a "double boom".

Söder now said in an interview with journalists that it was important that the MPK meeting did not just result in a "Wümschen".

He expects a "signal";

if this does not come, the meeting is only “a missed opportunity”.

Above all, one must agree on a gas price brake, said the CSU chairman.

This should “under no circumstances be complicated, not overly bureaucratic”.

Otherwise you run the risk of such an instrument becoming a flop.

Söder, who expressed fundamental doubts about the craftsmanship of the federal government, also called for a quick agreement on an electricity price brake.

Price brake also for petrol and heating oil?

Since it is not clear when there will be a European electricity price brake, a national solution must also be considered, said Söder.

You also have to think about brakes for "fuel prices" and heating oil.

Without giving any figures, the Bavarian Prime Minister called for a comprehensive solution.

"In the crisis it is right to make a big solution, not a small one." He again distanced himself from the debt brake.

This is a "Potemkin village," said Söder, "a self-deception".

For the federal-state meeting, Söder also called for an agreement on favorable usage options for local transport.

With regard to the temporarily introduced 9-euro ticket, he said that such tickets are something for metropolitan areas, but they are not suitable for rural areas because there is a lack of local transport.

Also, Söder demanded, the federal and state governments would have to agree on the support of hospitals.

After all, the federal government shouldn't let the states sit on the "exorbitantly high costs" for accommodating refugees.

Söder was convinced that it was "wise" to seek consensus from the federal and state governments in the crisis.

In his opinion, Chancellor Scholz is interested in this.

But he was prevented from doing so by his "wing partners" the FDP and the Greens.