DThe employer-oriented Institute of German Business (IW) has made suggestions for possible improvements to the controversial gas levy. Politicians must “sharpen the criteria for claiming compensation payments and take more account of the financial situation of companies and their systemic relevance,” said IW energy experts Andreas Fischer and Malte Küper to the newspapers of the editorial network Germany (RND) on Saturday.
“The fact that with the levy, according to the current interpretation, companies can also claim support that may not get into financial difficulties themselves proves to be a design flaw. Improvements need to be made here,” demanded the IW experts.
“Targeted relief for those who suffer particularly from high energy prices”
However, they believe that the idea of sharing the additional costs of gas procurement through a levy on a solidarity basis and thus preventing the collapse of systemically important energy companies is fundamentally correct. “With all understanding for the emotional debate about the gas surcharge, we should not forget that this ultimately accounts for only a small part of the enormous gas price increases for households and companies and will also gradually melt away,” said Fischer and Küper. “What counts now are targeted relief for those who are particularly suffering from the high energy prices.”
The umbrella organization of the energy industry (BDEW) defended the surcharge, but also advocates modifications to the regulations. “The best way would have been to support the gas import companies from federal funds or via loan safeguards,” said BDEW boss Kerstin Andreae to the RND. However, the federal government has chosen the path of the levy, which spreads the burden more widely.
“One thing must be clear with all the correction proposals currently being discussed: the replacement procurement of urgently needed gas quantities must not be jeopardized,” demanded Andreae. Therefore, the financial ability of gas importers to act must continue to be ensured. However, this applies “of course only to those companies that are indispensable for the overall system”.
The gas levy of a good 2.4 cents per kilowatt hour consumed is to be paid by private households and companies from October. The money is intended to relieve companies that have to buy expensive gas elsewhere to fulfill their contracts because of the reduced deliveries from Russia. This is intended to prevent company bankruptcies and ultimately delivery failures.
According to the current regulations, companies that are not currently in economic difficulties or are even making high profits in other business areas would also benefit from the levy. This had triggered massive criticism within the traffic light coalition.
The energy policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Michael Kruse, called for the gas surcharge to be limited to companies in difficulties and proposed a staged test procedure for this. “The deficits that have become known in the design of the gas levy must be remedied as soon as possible,” Kruse told the Düsseldorf “Rheinische Post” on Saturday. The group of recipients can be restricted by a staged procedure in such a way that “only companies that have gotten into economic difficulties and for which this has been determined can claim compensation payments.”
