The federal states have agreed on the cornerstones of a hardship regulation for energy-intensive, medium-sized companies. According to this, small and medium-sized companies should receive additional support in cases of hardship if rising energy prices endanger their existence despite the electricity and gas price brake.
The proposal, which was drawn up in a special conference of the economics ministers of the federal states on Friday, will now be presented to the Federal Chancellor and the Prime Ministers. The next meeting of the Prime Ministers’ Conference (MPK) with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) is scheduled for December 8th.
The North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Economic Affairs announced after the meeting that the aid was limited to energy-intensive companies with significant cost increases in order to actually only cover cases of particular hardship. “In individual cases, small and medium-sized companies can receive financial support beyond the electricity and gas price brake,” it said. The federal states want to take over the application and processing in order to ensure short distances.
Time is not fixed yet
If the MPK agrees to the concept, the federal and state governments should specify details of the procedure. NRW Economics Minister Mona Neubaur (Greens) is currently Chair of the Ministerial Conference. From when exactly the hardship regulation should take effect according to the will of the federal states is still the subject of talks, said a ministry spokesman.
“Despite the electricity and gas price brakes, many energy-intensive companies are suffering from price increases that threaten their existence,” said Neubaur. We therefore want to cushion the particular hardships for small and medium-sized businesses quickly and unbureaucratically. “With the hardship regulation, we are supplementing the government’s electricity and gas price brakes, which already provide important help for many companies, but cannot cover every case of hardship.”
Among other things, the proposal provides that affected companies should be able to apply for a subsidy in the amount of an advance payment in addition to the December emergency aid. The prerequisite for this is a multiplication of energy prices. The federal states can set up their own hardship commissions to examine and determine particular hardship. North Rhine-Westphalia announced that it intends to do this with the involvement of the chambers of commerce.
The ministerial round of the federal states also spoke out in favor of further improvements for smaller energy-intensive companies that do not receive wholesale prices and use oil or other energy sources such as wood pellets as their main energy source. This would relieve bakeries and textile craftsmen in particular, it said.
