The Union faction in the Bundestag calls on the traffic light coalition to quickly implement and improve the expert proposals to cushion the high gas prices. The gas price brake is “absolutely necessary” to relieve citizens and companies, but is not enough, said CSU regional group chairman Alexander Dobrindt on Tuesday in Berlin. A regulation for the electricity price is also necessary. In addition, the following applies: “It must not lead to any new injustices now.”
The first parliamentary director of the Union faction, Thorsten Frei, said that the second stage comes very close to what the Union formulated in early summer. It could have come now, “if the federal government hadn’t wasted a quarter of a year in the summer putting all its energy into a gas levy, which thank God didn’t come to pass in the end.”
The commission of experts set up by the federal government has proposed a one-off payment in December for private gas customers and small companies based on the advance payment in September. The actual price brake should come in January for industrial companies and for private households and small companies from March if possible, or April at the latest. For the latter, there should be a basic quota of 12 cents per kilowatt hour – for 80 percent of the consumption on which the down payment from September is based. Above this quantity, the contractually agreed working price shall apply.
The CDU politician Frei complained that the second stage did not take into account oil and pellets, the prices of which had risen enormously. Dobrindt called the one-off payment far too low. When the actual gas price brake takes effect in the spring, the heating season will be over. “This one month relief for the entire heating season is clearly not enough.” It would be best to let the gas price brake take effect earlier.
In addition, some gas customers would not have had any higher advance payments in September because the notifications would not come until October or November. Dobrindt said that they received less relief, although they had the same cost pressure in winter.
