Robert Habeck doesn’t say it. Not on the first attempt, not on the second, not on the third. The Green Economics Minister is skirting around the S-word like a cat around a mouse hole. Don’t make things worse now.
The Federal Association of German Industry has invited people to the climate congress. It should also be about the debt brake, the dreaded S-word. Its president, Siegfried Russwurm, set the tone at the start: There is a threat of ruin. “The lights at more and more German locations are literally being turned off,” says Russwurm. Energy-intensive industry locations are “specifically” at risk. “Without internationally competitive energy costs for companies, things won’t end well.” A rapid reduction in electricity taxes and network fees is also necessary. The BDI had already distributed the speech in advance and specifically pointed out this premature distribution the day before – but no one should miss how modest the industry sees its situation.
The industry even has an ally in Habeck. After all, the Economics Minister had already made a proposal in the spring on how electricity prices in energy-intensive industries could be capped. “You don’t have to make me Catholic,” he said at the congress in Berlin. It only looks more difficult with partners in the federal government. Finance Minister Christian Lindner from the FDP is keeping his hand firmly on the economic stabilization fund, with whose remaining billions of euros Habeck would like to finance his “bridge electricity price”. And the Chancellor and former Finance Minister Olaf Scholz made it clear weeks ago that he was neither interested in a permanent subsidy nor in watering can help. Since then he has remained silent on the subject.
Meanwhile, Habeck is creating veritable monsters of words to somehow justify the price cap. It must become clear that ultimately it is an “industrial workers’ electricity price,” he says, an “industrial location electricity price.” What’s more, in the end it’s about an “industrial society electricity price”. Nothing is being heard from our partners in the federal government on the subject this Tuesday.
But if there is a lack of money because no taxes should be increased, if at the same time state funds should not be touched or, like the climate and transformation fund, are already oversubscribed x times, then the only thing left is additional debt. And that, in turn, is only possible through the operation that Habeck mentions but does not say: easing the debt brake. “The question that is now in the room is: Do the financial policy rules that we have set ourselves actually fit the requirements that we have to meet during this time,” he says. “I’ll let this question fade away.”
The last syllable has not yet faded away when he adds more. All assumptions on which the attitude to life and security in Germany were previously based have been shattered: cheap Russian gas, a huge export market in China, the protective hand of the USA. “Whether the rules we gave ourselves under these three assumptions can be the same is at least a relevant question.” Rarely has anyone so persistently questioned a rule without explicitly mentioning it once. The debt brake resonates in every half sentence.
Without relief, there is a risk of “creeping migration,” some fear
He received no opposition from the industry. “I would like to experience the 2030s,” says Christian Hartel, CEO of the Bavarian chemical company Wacker. “We also not only have to ask ourselves the question of whether I can expand, but also whether I can stay in Germany.” You might be able to cope with twice as high energy costs. But things get tight at factors 3 to 5.
The unions had already spoken out last week, including with a study by the union-affiliated Hans Böckler Foundation. This advocated for a continuation and expansion of the current electricity price brake. On Tuesday, this alliance will become even stronger: the BDI and the German Federation of Trade Unions will issue a joint statement on the subject of electricity prices. Russwurm calls for rapid relief, otherwise there is a risk of “creeping migration”. And DGB boss Yasmin Fahimi declares “competitive electricity prices” as a condition for saying goodbye to fossil energy. “Without this there is no climate protection.”
Habeck is still asked how good the chances of relief are. His answer: “Fifty-fifty.” But from the industry’s point of view, this is actually good news. There were times when the probability was 10:90.