Dehoga boss Ingrid Hartges sharply criticizes the recently decided price brakes for gas and electricity. The reason: Companies that suffered the most from the Corona measures are disadvantaged. There are also problems for flood victims in the Ahr valley.

The hospitality industry and the trade fair industry have sharply criticized the gas and electricity price brakes that have been decided and have called for improvements. “The vast majority of companies will be relieved by the energy price brakes. However, as they have now been decided, they disadvantage companies that have already suffered the most from the Corona measures,” says Ingrid Hartges, general manager of the Dehoga hotel and restaurant association, of the “Bild am Sonntag”.

Hartges explains: A medium-sized hotel (more than 1.5 million kilowatt hours of gas consumption) was closed for five months in 2021 due to the lockdown and used less accordingly. Consequence: In 2023 it will get less gas at a state-subsidized price. “Companies are penalized twice here. The government has known about the problem for weeks, now it has to be solved.”

The trade fair operators feel they are being treated similarly unfairly. They were also in lockdown until May and were only able to hold 101 trade fairs in 2021 instead of the planned 379. “The Corona year 2021 is the absolutely wrong reference year,” says Jörn Holtmeier, Managing Director of the Exhibition Association. “It’s unbelievable that the trade fair bans issued by politicians have already been forgotten.” Holtmeier demands “that a pre-Corona year be chosen”.

There is also no legally binding regulation for the flood victims in the Ahr Valley that guarantees that the energy consumption from the flood year 2021 will not be used as a basis for calculating the subsidized quota. In order to counteract the imbalance, the Bundestag has asked the government to find a special regulation. The Rhineland-Palatinate Environment Minister Katrin Eder (Greens): “This special regulation must be implemented as quickly as possible so that the good idea of ​​​​the price brake does not forget those who are particularly dependent on it.”