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Germany’s Scholz defends energy support plan as ‘justified’

  • October 04, 2022

The German chancellor on Tuesday said a €200 billion ($198 billion) energy support package was justified and that similar steps were being taken elsewhere.

The “defensive shield” includes a gas price brake and a cut in fuel sales tax. It is aimed at protecting businesses and households from the impact of spiraling energy prices.

“The measures we are taking are not unique but are also being taken elsewhere and rightly so,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz told a press conference in Berlin during the visit of his Dutch colleague Mark Rutte.

“Some have long been in the process, with major supports and measures, of doing exactly what we have set out to do this year and the next two years.”

Overall, it’s a “very balanced, a very smart, a very decisive package that serves to keep prices down and bearable for as long as these challenges exist,” Scholz added.

German Finance Minister Christian Lindner, from the neoliberal Free Democrats also sought to reassure his EU counterparts at talks in Luxembourg on Tuesday.

“There had been a misunderstanding… Our package… is proportionate if you compare the size and the vulnerability of the German economy,” Lindner said.

Why is the package controversial?

Opponents of the package say it will distort competition inside the Single Market by giving an advantage to German business.

The EU’s Internal market commissioner Thierry Breton and economy commissioner Paolo Gentiloni, from France and Italy respectively, say the German plan “raised questions” on fairness. They called for a Europe-wide measure to be used to help countries.

The European Commission, which supervises antitrust policy across the EU, said on Monday it was talking to Berlin about the package.

“We are fully committed to preserving a level playing field and a single market, and avoiding harmful subsidy races,” a Commission spokesperson told a news conference.

While you’re here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing.

rc/rt (AFP, dpa)

Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-s-scholz-defends-energy-support-plan-as-justified/a-63331185?maca=en-rss-en-ger-1023-xml-atom

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