Third relief package: Results only on Sunday morning

BUndeskanzler Olaf Scholz wants to announce the results of the coalition consultations on financial relief for citizens in Germany this Sunday at 11 a.m. This was announced by the Chancellery on Sunday night during the ongoing negotiations between the leaders of the SPD, Greens and FDP. The consultations at the government headquarters began on Saturday afternoon.

A comprehensive package is planned with targeted relief to compensate for the drastically increased prices in the wake of the Ukraine war. In addition to Scholz (SPD), Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck (Greens) and Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP), other cabinet members and the leaders of the three parliamentary groups and parties took part in the negotiations. At a cabinet meeting in the middle of the week, Scholz announced a relief package that was “as tailor-made as possible, as efficient as possible, as targeted as possible”.

Many possible adjustment screws

A whole bundle of measures is expected with which the coalition wants to react to the sharp rise in energy and living costs. Direct payments for people with low incomes and in particular for pensioners and students, tax relief, an expansion of housing benefit and a successor regulation for the nine-euro ticket in local transport were under discussion.

It would be the third relief package this year. In addition to the nine-euro ticket, the two previous packages also included the fuel discount that expired at the end of August, a one-off bonus for child benefit and a flat-rate energy price. The previous packages had a total volume of a good 30 billion euros.

Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) said on Wednesday after a two-day cabinet meeting that he still saw scope for relief in the single-digit billions for this year and for the coming year in the double-digit billions.

The SPD and the Greens are also calling for a so-called excess profit tax, with which profits from the crisis could be skimmed off, for example because of the high gas prices at energy companies. It could also be used to fund further relief. Lindner and the FDP are skeptical about the excess profit tax.