Energy price brakes about to end?
The Greens and SPD contradict Lindner
November 25, 2023, 7:10 p.m
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When Finance Minister Lindner announced the early end of the energy price brakes at the end of the year, he apparently did not yet have the approval of his government partners. Green Party leader Lang and SPD General Secretary Kühnert do not see the expiry a few months earlier as a done deal.
Green Party leader Ricarda Lang sees no agreement by the government on this issue despite Finance Minister Christian Lindner’s announcement to end the energy price caps. It is currently only clear that the Economic Stabilization Fund (WSF) will be dissolved, the debt brake will remain suspended and the energy price brakes will be paid by the end of the year, Lang told the broadcasters RTL and ntv at the Green Party conference in Karlsruhe.
How funding will continue from 2024 onwards “is of course still being discussed within the government”. Of course, the government has already talked about energy price caps, but many questions remain unanswered at the moment. “In the end you have to look at the overall package and then see how we get through not only this year, but also the next few years,” Lang told the broadcasters.
Kühnert: “It is not a decision by the coalition”
SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert also told the “Kölnische Rundschau” that he had noted Lindner’s announcement “with astonishment”. “That may be his opinion – it is not a decision by the coalition.” Whether there will still be energy price brakes in 2024 must now be negotiated politically. “The SPD believes this is necessary.”
Lindner announced on Friday that the government would not pay out the billions in state aid through the electricity and gas price brakes as planned by the end of March 2024. They would be “finished at the end of the year,” he said on Deutschlandfunk. The federal government introduced the price brakes last year in order to cushion the sharp rise in energy prices as a result of Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine.
Financing was provided via the Economic Stabilization Fund (WSF), which is worth up to 200 billion euros. The Karlsruhe judges had declared such special funds inadmissible alongside the regular budget. The WSF is no longer available, said Lindner.