STERN survey
Three quarters of Germans against increasing energy prices
In January, fuel could become four to five cents more expensive if the CO2 price rises.
© Michael Gstettenbauer / Imago Images
The Traffic Light Coalition’s plans to solve the budget crisis are encountering resistance. The vast majority of Germans are against increasing taxes on heating oil, gas, gasoline, diesel or electricity. Only Green voters see it differently.
On Monday, farmers in Berlin demonstrated against the abolition of subsidies with tractor convoys. According to the traffic light coalition’s original plans, farmers should in future pay the full tax rate on agricultural diesel and will no longer be exempt from vehicle tax. But the resistance to the federal government’s austerity package goes much further.
Three out of four Germans generally reject the federal government’s planned increase in energy prices. This was the result of a Forsa survey commissioned by star. In order to solve the budget crisis, the traffic light coalition decided, among other things, to increase the C02 price more at the turn of the year. As a result, rising prices for heating oil, gas, gasoline, diesel and electricity are expected. 22 percent of Germans consider higher energy costs to be justifiable. 75 percent say the federal government should have made up the missing billions through savings that would not burden citizens so much. Three percent have no opinion on it. The criticism is particularly strong among Germans whose households earn less than 2,500 euros net per month. 82 percent of them reject the traffic light plans. Not surprisingly, households with lower incomes have to spend a larger portion of their income on energy.
The voters of the governing parties SPD and FDP are also against the increase in energy prices: 61 percent of SPD voters reject the measures, 35 percent find them justifiable: Similar with the FDP: 62 percent are in favor of the plans, only 33 percent are in favor. The rejection is even greater among supporters of the CDU/CSU (82 percent) and AfD (95 percent). Only 59 percent of Green voters are in favor of making energy more expensive, while only 37 percent are in favor of a few burdensome austerity measures.
The data was collected by the market and opinion research institute forsa for RTL Group Germany on December 14th and 15th, 2023. Database: 1096 respondents. Statistical margin of error: +/- 3 percentage points.