Monday, February 08, 2021
Corona help for companies
Altmaier regrets sluggish payments
The companies hit by the Corona crisis have only partially received the promised aid. Altmaier now apologizes for the slow payout. There are several reasons for the delay, said the Minister for Economic Affairs.
In view of massive criticism, Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier apologized to companies for the slow payment of Corona aid. The CDU politician said on the political talk show "The Right Questions" on "Bild live": "First of all, I apologize for the fact that it is taking so long. If I had seen any way to accelerate it, I would have done it. "
Since the federal states were not in a position to administer the November and December aid, a platform for it had to be "pounded out of the ground". Until a few days ago, the Federal Ministry of Finance had argued about the conditions for the bridging aid from January. However, you cannot start paying out beforehand. "That is something where we are too cumbersome, where we have to get faster," said Altmaier. The federal government has long been heavily criticized because of the slow implementation of corona aid and too much bureaucracy.
More than 100 billion euros in aid
As the Ministry of Economic Affairs announced, a total of more than 80 billion euros in aid for the economy has been approved since the beginning of the Corona crisis. In addition, there is the short-time work allowance of around 23 billion euros.
A little more than half of the November and December aid applied for by companies had actually been paid out by the beginning of February. As of Monday, applications for a funding volume of around 9.4 billion euros had been submitted for this aid, according to the Federal Ministry of Economics. Of this, almost 5.2 billion euros have been paid out so far – either as an advance payment or as a regular payment. These aids are aimed primarily at companies in lockdown; lost sales are reimbursed. The core instrument of economic aid is bridging aid III. Fixed operating costs such as rent or electricity are reimbursed.
At the beginning of the year, the Ministry of Finance and Economics decided to expand the aid, and the complex application system is to be simplified. Applications for advance payments should be possible soon, as it was said.
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