Healthy companies and gas surcharge
Habeck: We solve the problem
08/28/2022 11:22 p.m
The gas surcharge is intended to help ailing companies that have gotten into trouble due to the high prices. But even healthy companies have rights. Economics Minister Habeck now says that this will change.
Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck has promised a change in the planned gas levy. The aim of the change is to prevent companies that do not need it economically from benefiting from these additional payments by gas customers. “That’s why you have to work hard on the problem now. And we do that too,” said the Green politician in the evening on ZDF. “We will solve this problem.”
The challenge is to ensure the supply of gas to the population and companies, “and that was in danger,” explained Habeck. Direct state aid to ailing companies is not a solution. “Long-term financing by the state is not a business model, and that’s why we had to choose this allocation,” he explained. “We have to see that these companies, which actually don’t need access to this surcharge, don’t get it either.”
The Greens politician warned against taking the good filling level in the gas storage facilities as a relaxation. The stored gas should “be withdrawn again as a reserve” in a possibly tense situation in winter – but how stable the situation will then be, “no one can predict now”.
The gas storage facilities are already 82 percent full and should soon reach the level of 85 percent targeted for October. “We only got it so full because consumption went down in the summer. And that’s why the appeal is still right: we have to bring gas consumption down in Germany,” warned the minister.