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Habeck’s ministry is causing discontent at traffic lights with the abrupt end of the e-car bonus
Electric cars are charged at a charging station
© Hendrik Schmidt / DPA
It has been clear for a few days now that the state purchase bonus for electric cars will “imminently” fall victim to the traffic light savings. Now the environmental bonus will be history surprisingly quickly this weekend. This causes trouble at traffic lights.
The federal government did not hesitate for long when it came to the planned earlier end to the state purchase bonus for electric cars and decided to extend the environmental bonus Set for the weekend. With this decision, the Federal Ministry of Economics caused indignation – and new arguments within the coalition. On Saturday, the ministry announced that applications for the funding bonus could only be accepted until midnight on Sunday. The reason is the austerity constraints in the budget. The SPD criticized the short-term end as “extremely unfortunate” and called for an interim solution.
The ministry’s move concerns the so-called environmental bonus, through which buyers of electric cars could receive several thousand euros in subsidies from the state upon application. Last week, in their agreement on the 2024 budget, the coalition leaders decided to let the funding expire. However, the fact that the application freeze was supposed to take effect on Sunday came as a surprise to many.
SPD parliamentary group criticizes Robert Habeck
Last Wednesday, the traffic light coalition made up of the SPD, the Greens and the FDP reached an agreement on how to plug billions in holes following the Federal Constitutional Court’s budget ruling. This affects the core budget as well as the Climate and Transformation Fund (KTF), which also finances the funding for electric cars. According to the ministry, e-car funding was originally supposed to expire at the end of 2024 – or before if the funds have been used up.
The SPD parliamentary group is in favor of the early expiry of the funding. “However, we find the funding stop on December 17th, which was announced at short notice on Saturday, to be extremely unfortunate,” three deputy SPD parliamentary group leaders told the German Press Agency. The deputy SPD parliamentary group leaders Detlef Müller, Matthias Miersch and Verena Hubertz called on Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) on Sunday to “organize a more reliable transition”. Most people “have to calculate very carefully when purchasing a new car how they can afford it and have certainly budgeted for the premium.”
The Ministry of Economic Affairs immediately rejected this: There was no money for an interim solution. A ministry spokesman admitted that the expiry of the funding would create an “unfortunate situation” for all those who had expected a bonus. However, the short-term expiry of the funding program became necessary “because there is no longer enough money available to be able to consider applications received after Sunday.” This situation is “a direct consequence” of the Federal Constitutional Court’s budget ruling.
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“All funds that were available in the 2023 financial year have been exhausted”
However, funding that has already been promised will not be affected by the end of the funding and will be paid out. Existing applications received up to and including December 17th will be processed in the order in which they are received and – provided the funding requirements are met – approved, the ministry explained.
A ministry spokesman emphasized on Sunday that the decision to end funding at short notice was “determined together with the Federal Chancellery.” “We therefore reject the one-sided criticism of this.” According to ministry circles, the accusation of “one-sided criticism” also referred to the critical statements from the SPD parliamentary group.
Habeck’s ministry continued that “all funds that were available in the 2023 budget year have already been exhausted.” The funds of 209 million euros still scheduled for 2024 “will only be sufficient if the funding expires with immediate effect.”
FDP takes Habeck’s side
According to AFP information, around 1,400 applications were recently received every day, with an average funding amount of 4,000 euros. Each additional day of application costs the state around 5.6 million euros. If applications had stopped at the end of the year, as was initially expected, additional funds of around 80 million euros would have been necessary.
Habeck’s ministry received support from the coalition partner FDP. FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr described it to the Funke newspapers as “right that this costly funding is running out earlier than planned”. This “contributes to the urgently needed consolidation of the federal budget.”
Industry expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, on the other hand, warned of dramatic consequences for the German automotive industry. “The competitiveness of manufacturers is now being severely damaged,” said Dudenhöffer to the “Rheinische Post”. Without high investments in electric cars, German industry would lose crucial advantages: “The Chinese are massively expanding their car industry because they have customers. Our manufacturers no longer have any.”
CDU criticizes traffic lights
The CDU accused the traffic light government of abandoning tens of thousands of car buyers. Vice parliamentary group leader Ulrich Lange called for an interim solution in the Funke newspapers. With the short-term stop to the state purchase bonus for electric cars, the traffic light is causing “its typical funding chaos” and is thus destroying trust.
In order to boost sales, the federal government at the time decided on a purchase bonus in 2016. According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, a total of around ten billion euros has since been paid out through the environmental bonus for around 2.1 million electric vehicles. The federal government wanted to use the funding to support its goal of putting a total of 15 million fully electric cars on the roads by 2030.