Gas price brake not sufficient
Craft calls for special aid at the beginning of the year
10/22/2022 4:21 am
The current plans for the gas price brake provide for aid in December and then from March. For the two months in between, the trade is now sounding the alarm. If there were no support for this period, many a company would not survive.
The President of the Central Association of German Crafts and Trades calls for hardship regulations for the gas price brake for January and February. The first proposals from the expert commission, such as accepting the December discount and the gas price brake from March, are good, “but too little and too late for our energy-intensive companies,” said association president Hans Peter Wollseifer of the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung”. Many companies did not manage to hold out until March without help.
There is a real “support gap,” Wollseifer said. “We have to build a hardship bridge for January and February. Our proposal is that the state pay half of the deduction for electricity and gas for January and February.” The association does not want “subsidies with the watering can,” emphasized Wollseifer. “Our aim is to save the companies that are healthy in themselves, but which cannot cope with the external shocks without support and would otherwise have to close.” Bakers, confectioners, butchers, brewers, electroplaters, surface finishers, textile cleaners and car workshops are particularly affected.
On behalf of the federal government, the so-called Gas Price Commission had submitted a proposal for the introduction of the gas price brake, which should relieve households and companies in the face of extreme gas price increases. According to this, a one-off relief should initially take place in December by taking over a monthly discount, while a permanent gas price brake will take effect from March 2023. January and February 2023 meanwhile higher prices apply again.
The prime ministers of the federal states had also criticized the schedule and unanimously called for the brakes to be introduced as early as January.