The advance payment made in September serves as the basis for the December payment. This is a “financial bridge to the regular introduction of the gas price brake,” it said.
In a second step, if possible from March next year until the end of April 2024, the prices for 80 percent of an estimated basic quota are to be reduced to twelve cents per kilowatt hour. The contractually agreed energy price then applies to the remainder of the consumption quantity above this basic quota. This should receive an incentive to save, stressed Grimm.
For industrial consumers, i.e. customers with high gas consumption and specially negotiated contracts, the quota should be based on 70 percent of consumption in 2021. The agreed market price is also due for this. A procurement price of seven cents per kilowatt hour is defined for this quota. Around 25,000 companies are affected.
The experts put the cost of the gas price brake at around 91 billion euros. Of this, around five billion euros relate to the one-off payment. However, this discount is taxable. Of the total, 66 billion euros will go to households and small businesses and 25 billion euros to industry.
“We wanted to be fast in the relief effect,” said Michael Vassiliadis, Commission Vice President and Chairman of the IGBCE trade union. The second Vice-Commissioner, BDI President Siegfried Russwurm, emphasized that a long-term perspective is also necessary when it comes to the price of gas, because the price level will always be above the level before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit announced in Berlin that the federal government would now “work very quickly on implementing the proposals.” The goal remains “to lower the high gas prices and at the same time to ensure a secure supply of gas”. Savings were also “part of our toolbox”.
“We will look at the proposals and then “implement them very quickly and to a large extent,” said Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP). Greens boss Ricarda Lang also urged rapid “concrete steps” on Bavarian radio in RTL and ntv SPD boss Lars Klingbeil.
CSU regional group chief Alexander Dobrindt called the relief proposals “not sufficient” in the “Bild”. For the left-wing faction, Christian Leye criticized that a gas price brake is only now being tackled and that “wealthy households with significantly higher consumption” are also being subsidized.
Business associations expressed different opinions. The energy industry association BDEW spoke of an opportunity for “quick, effective and realizable relief”. The Central Association of German Crafts (ZDH) complained about a “relief gap” for smaller but energy-intensive companies. The German Association of Towns and Municipalities called for an extension to include municipal facilities in the “Rheinische Post”.
DGB chair Yasmin Fahimi welcomed the commission’s proposals as “the right signal”. The General Manager of the Joint Association, Ulrich Schneider, pushed for improvements in favor of a “socially just design of the relief”. Verdi boss and commission member Frank Werneke criticized in a dissenting opinion that the proposal was “not sufficiently socially balanced”.
WWF, BUND and Germanwatch pushed for greater efforts to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Environmental organizations have also called for options for state direct payments to citizens. The director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Ottmar Edenhofer, called for more savings incentives.
