Federal-state meeting: A question of financing

Germany ticket, energy aid, hardship grants: At the federal-state meeting, there were a number of topics with potential for conflict to be discussed. Because one question was the main focus: who should pay for all this?

It was expected to be the last meeting of the federal and state governments this year. An opportunity for the chancellor to take a look back: “What a grueling year for many with many stirring moments,” said Olaf Scholz (SPD) at the joint press conference with the prime ministers of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia after the meeting. “It demanded our work. We had to make very, very many decisions to ensure that the consequences of this war in Germany, in Europe, can be dealt with,” said Scholz.

At the regular meeting between the federal and state governments, conflicts about the financing of this consequence management had to be dealt with. For example, the financing of a Germany ticket for 49 euros a month, help for people who heat with oil, pellets and briquettes, and hardship support for small and medium-sized businesses. The federal states were quite unanimous – they saw the federal government above all as having the financial obligation. They were only partially able to assert themselves.

Point of contention Germany ticket

Starting with the Germany ticket: from the point of view of the federal states a traffic light project, which is why the federal government clearly has an obligation. The federal and state governments had actually already agreed at the beginning of November to introduce a ticket for local transport valid throughout Germany for 49 euros a month. The costs of the expected three billion per year should be divided equally. But then the transport companies suddenly brought up possible additional costs due to the rise in energy prices. And so there were arguments about how high these possible additional costs could be and who should pay how much of them. The countries didn’t want to wear them.

But now “all hurdles” have been removed, according to Scholz. The measure had been “specified”. The ticket can come. The result of the negotiations: all costs for 2023 will be shared equally between the federal and state governments. What will happen after 2023? “We’ll have to see what the tariff structure looks like based on the experience of the first year,” says Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD), whose state chairs the Prime Ministers’ Conference. “This whole system will first have to tune in.”

No aids for heating with oil, pellets or briquettes

But when will the ticket come? The start date was originally intended to be January 1st. Then April 1st. The transport companies finally brought May 1st into play. And now? “Quickly and quickly,” says Scholz. So start on April 1st? One is “at great speed on the matter,” replies Scholz. SPD colleague Weil is a little bit more specific: The Germany ticket should not become “a summer issue”. It should come “very quickly by the end of the first quarter”.

The federal states could not assert themselves with their demand for help for people who heat with oil, pellets or briquettes. In North Rhine-Westphalia that is a quarter of households, said NRW Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) in the afternoon. In the joint press conference with the Federal Chancellor, there was disillusionment: the “winter gap” could be closed – in that the gas and electricity price brake should apply retrospectively for the winter months of January and February – but not this “justice gap” for consumers who use oil, pellets or Heat briquettes, so libertine. This is not the result “that we wanted”. “We now have to give an answer in the countries ourselves.”

Energy cost hardship aid for medium-sized businesses

From Scholz’s point of view, only a “fine touch” was needed in the case of hardship for energy-intensive, medium-sized companies. At the last federal-state meeting in early November, the federal government had already declared its willingness to make one billion euros available for such a hardship regulation. The economics ministers of the federal states then worked out key points. According to this, small and medium-sized companies in hardship cases should receive support in addition to electricity and gas price brakes and the December emergency aid if their existence is at risk. But even here the question of financing remained. Should the federal states contribute a part in addition to the billion from the federal government?

The federal states did not consider such an own contribution “appropriate” because they had already started their own aid programs, Weil said in advance. In addition, the federal government should refrain from “establishing an extensive catalog of requirements and making things complicated”. And in fact it stayed that way. The federal government promises the funds. The countries determine the details of the distribution of the funds. The press conference is over quickly. Wüst got up shortly before the end and left for the next appointment. From the Chancellor’s point of view, it was an important, constructive meeting.