A few days before the next EU summit, the pressure on Chancellor Olaf Scholz to show more solidarity with the European partners in the energy crisis is increasing. The criticism of the federal government follows a political calculation.
No German solo efforts is the argument put forward again and again by Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) against deliveries of battle tanks from the Federal Republic to Ukraine.
But in another field, energy policy, the federal government is pushing ahead, according to the judgment of many EU countries, with a 200 billion euro aid package, the “double boom”, for the sole benefit of its own consumers and companies.
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In view of numerous other national wummse and wummschen, the criticism seems hypocritical. Apparently, it suits a number of states as a means of exerting moral pressure on Germany: it should no longer resist a new energy subsidy fund at EU level that is financed with joint debts.
French President Emmanuel Macron, like Italy and Spain, would probably have nothing against such a solution. That’s why he repeated the frequently audible objection to the German energy course a few days before the EU summit at the end of this week with unusual clarity.
“There is European solidarity towards Germany, and it is normal that Germany also shows solidarity towards Europe,” said the President of the French daily Les Echos. Going it alone at national level led to “distortions on the European continent”.
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Of course, this insight did not prevent Macron from introducing price limits for gas and electricity in his own country and financing them with state funds.
Numerous other EU countries have also spent billions on energy price caps, electricity cost subsidies, VAT reductions and fuel discounts. Overall, the current status of the planned equalization expenses in the EU is already estimated at half a trillion euros.
After the most recent informal EU summit in Prague, Chancellor Scholz rightly remarked that “there is hardly a country that is not taking similar measures”. The State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Economics Sven Giegold from the Greens not only emphasized at a general meeting of the “European Movement Germany” in Berlin: “Germany is not going alone here”.
He also pointed to complaints from German business about competitive disadvantages in European countries where so-called protective shields against the explosion in energy costs have already been set up, for example in Italy and Spain.
In Prague, Scholz indicated an important difference between other national aid programs and the German “double boom”: “We are an economically strong country, we can do it.” for borrowing exceeds.
Pointing this out as confidently as the Chancellor did was perhaps not the smartest communication strategy when it really had to be about not letting envy arise.
“We would like that too,” is how Isolde Ries (SPD), district mayor of Saarbrücken-West and German delegation leader in the EU Committee of the Regions, describes the reaction of other European local politicians when the conversation turns to the German “double boom”.
Ries shares with her colleagues the concerns about the constantly rising energy costs of municipal utilities and local transport companies, sends the caretakers of public facilities in search of electricity guzzlers such as old refrigerators, and lowers the water temperature in the indoor pool from 28 to 26 degrees. But all austerity measures will not be enough, as she already knows.
However, Ries does not currently know what will arrive from the federal government’s aid package in Saarbrücken. She pleads for gas and electricity price limits and a new funding program at European level, in which the municipalities would have to participate with the lowest possible amount of their own funds. The EU could take on debt for this. Ries demands: “You have to think in new ways. There shouldn’t be any taboos.”
This is how influential states of the European Union, such as France, Italy and Spain, have long seen it. Various models for an energy subsidy pot are in circulation, they all have one thing in common – joint liability for new debts, for which the EU was not even authorized until the introduction of the Corona Aid Fund.
Now the example of that time should set a precedent. The federal government, together with fellow campaigners such as the Netherlands, is still resisting this pressure. However, this is growing as a result of the debate about Germany’s supposed attempt to go it alone, both within the European Commission and in the European Council.
Its President Charles Michel recalled the beginning of the corona epidemic, when measures by the individual states gave the “impression of unfairness”. A common energy strategy must prevent a repetition.
To this end, the heads of state and government will have proposals from the Commission for joint gas purchasing by the member states for their summit in Brussels, but apparently not for a general gas price cap.
On this issue, too, Berlin is in a defensive struggle against numerous other European capitals and is under moral pressure.
The federal government fears that such a price cap could drive gas suppliers to other customers. The accusation against them is that they have pushed up the prices on their own with unhesitatingly generous gas purchases.
The topic should come up at the summit, for the umpteenth time. After several special meetings of the EU energy ministers, the knot must now burst, demands Rasmus Andresen, head of the German Green Party in the European Parliament.
“With every day of uncertainty, we risk further economic and social division,” he warns. The German government must “open up further”.
According to the judgment of the CSU economic expert in the EU Parliament, Markus Ferber, she already has an open flank when it comes to debt: “Berlin is starting negotiations on the future of European debt rules with a shadow budget of 200 billion euros.
After the ‘double boom’, Lindner can hardly promote debt discipline. This is a problematic precedent.”
Even if wishes for more support within the EU framework should come true: The problems with improving the energy infrastructure are anything but over.
Saarbrücken District Mayor Ries not only complains about the high time and administrative effort involved in applying for funds from Brussels: “Once you have managed all this, you will not find any craftsmen. And if that worked, then there will be no building material.”
