Robert Habeck was on a roll, but his gas levy is now causing him to stumble more and more rhetorically. However, the Federal Minister of Economics does not want to see the blame on himself, but on supposedly immoral companies. That’s rubbish.
A dictum goes like this: The ministries don’t care who is the minister. In other words, the actual power, which is also long-term, lies with the civil service. She writes the laws and oversees their implementation. Politicians come and go. Robert Habeck has undoubtedly come to tear something.
As federal economics, climate and unofficial energy minister, he wants nothing less than to reconcile economy and ecology first and foremost and to bring Germany forward. While others fail when it comes to baking small rolls, Habeck turns the oven up to full blast. That much verve is commendable. But politics is also a craft. And this is where the writer and philosopher is visibly struggling.
Now save articles for later in “Pocket”.
After the KfW subsidy for energetically forward-looking home builders, which was stopped almost overnight at the beginning of the year, the gas levy is the next big botch to be announced. In the worst case, it causes existential difficulties for consumers, who often cannot choose what they heat with in their rented apartments, due to the additional burden on top of the already high prices. At the same time, it flushes a few extra euros into the coffers of some healthy companies, with a total of 34 billion euros in the pipeline.
And so the criticism has recently become louder and louder. Until Thursday evening, Habeck stubbornly practiced self-defense and praised the levy as the last lifeline of an energy supply that would otherwise collapse. In his speech at the Westphalian Entrepreneurs’ Day in Münster, he simply passed the buck on. From now on, immoral companies are to blame.
A few companies would have “pushed in”, “which have now really earned a lot of money and do not need the levy of the population”. For reasons of equality before the law, however, these companies have a legal claim, Habeck continued in Münster. “But it is certainly not morally right for companies that – let me put it in Low German – to earn a pig’s money, then also say: Yes, and for the few loss of income that we have, we ask the population to help Help is supposed to give us money as well.”
In times of need, it is said, true character shows itself. And Habeck uses the old narrative of the “evil, evil economy”. It’s boring, ridiculous, and unworthy of a morally trained philosopher. Botch is botch and stays botch. Company board members are primarily committed to their company, its owners and employees. Morality does not appear in any balance sheet. And who actually decides what is morally good and what is reprehensible? The Federal Minister of Economics?
Habeck is not withdrawing the gas surcharge, but he announced that he would take a very close look at the whole thing again, “whether we can still find a legally secure way to end the incorrect use of these companies there.” In plain language, this means: the regulation for the introduction the allocation is changed. Perhaps the federal minister should, according to his nature, think bigger and best of all throw everything in the bin right away.
