{"id":6366,"date":"2022-09-05T15:44:48","date_gmt":"2022-09-05T15:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/euromenaenergy.com\/?p=6366"},"modified":"2022-09-05T15:44:48","modified_gmt":"2022-09-05T15:44:48","slug":"germany-agrees-65bn-inflation-relief-package","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/?p=6366","title":{"rendered":"Germany agrees $65bn inflation relief package"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"subtitel col-lg-12\">\n<p>AFP \/ Berlin<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The German government yesterday unveiled a new multi-billion euro plan to help housesholds cope with soaring prices, and said it was eyeing windfall profits from energy companies to help fund the relief.<br \/>\nGerman businesses and consumers are feeling the pain from sky-high energy prices, as Europe\u2019s biggest economy seeks to extricate itself from reliance from Russian supplies in the wake of Moscow\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<br \/>\nRapid measures to prepare for the coming cold season will ensure that Germany would \u201cget through this winter,\u201d Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at the unveiling of the \u20ac65bn ($65bn) package.<br \/>\nThe latest agreement, which brings total relief to almost \u20ac100bn since the start of the Ukraine war, was hammered out overnight into Sunday by Germany\u2019s three-way ruling coalition of Scholz\u2019s Social Democrats, the Greens, and the liberal FDP.<br \/>\nAmong the headline measures are one-off payments to millions of vulnerable pensioners and a plan to skim off energy firms\u2019 windfall profits. The government\u2019s latest relief package came two days after Russian energy giant Gazprom said it would not restart gas deliveries via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline on Saturday as planned after a three-day maintenance.<br \/>\nThe government had made \u201ctimely decisions\u201d to avoid a winter crisis, Scholz said, including filling gas stores and restarting coal power plants. But preventative measures, including a drive to reduce consumption, have done little to break a sharp increase in household bills.<br \/>\nThe latest announcement follows two previous relief packages totalling \u20ac30bn, which included a reduction in the tax on petrol and a popular heavily subsidised public transport ticket.<br \/>\nBut with the expiration of many of those measures at the end of August and consumer prices soaring, the government has been under pressure to provide new support. Inflation rose again to 7.9% in August, after falling for two straight months thanks to previous government relief measures.<br \/>\nThe take-off in energy prices is expected to push inflation in Germany to around 10% by the end of the year, its highest rate in decades. Scholz said however that not everyone is suffering from the high consumer prices.<br \/>\nSome energy companies which may not be using gas to generate electricity were \u201csimply using the fact that the high price of gas determines the price of electricity and are therefore making a lot of money,\u201d he said.<br \/>\n\u201cWe have therefore resolved to change the market organisation in such a way that these random profits no longer occur or that they are skimmed off.\u201d The trimming of windfall profits would create \u201cfinancial headroom that should be used specifically to relieve the burden for consumers in Europe,\u201d the government said in its policy paper.<br \/>\nThe move could potentially bring \u201cdouble-digit billions\u201d of euros in relief, finance minister Christian Lindner estimated in the press conference. The government said it would push for the move to be implemented across the European Union, before going ahead with the measure on its own.<br \/>\nBrussels on Monday said it would prepare \u201cemergency\u201d action to reform the electricity market and bring prices under control. Scholz said he expected the EU to \u201cdeal quickly\u201d with the issue, adding that it was \u201cvery clear that we need rapid changes in this area\u201d.<br \/>\nRepeating his mantra that Germans will \u201cnever walk alone\u201d through the energy crisis, the chancellor unveiled a raft of measures, including a one-off payment of \u20ac300 to millions of pensioners to help them cover rising power bills.<br \/>\nThe government will also target students with a smaller one-time transfer of \u20ac200, and an heating cost payment for people receiving housing benefits.<br \/>\nBerlin also set aside \u20ac1.5bn for work on a successor to the wildly popular nine-euro monthly ticket on local and regional transport networks. The relief package as a whole should be financed without planning to take on further debt, Lindner said.<br \/>\n\u201cThese measures are included within the government\u2019s existing budget plans,\u201d covering 2022 and 2023, he said, with the remainder covered by the windfall energy profit measures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AFP \/ Berlin The German government yesterday unveiled a new multi-billion euro plan to help housesholds cope with soaring prices, and said it was eyeing windfall profits from energy companies to help&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6367,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,28],"tags":[46,48,57,63,68,76,77,82,86,87,90,96,99,103,107,109,111,113,137,139,146,148,160,174,183,184,201,202,209,222,230,232,233,244,246,249,256,262,263,267,277,279,280,285,288],"class_list":["post-6366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energyindustry","category-russia","tag-aramco","tag-athens","tag-baroudi","tag-blue-economy","tag-carbon","tag-climate","tag-climate-change","tag-co2","tag-cyprus","tag-decarbonising","tag-democracy","tag-doha","tag-eastmed","tag-egypt","tag-embargo","tag-emissions","tag-energy","tag-energy-peace","tag-gas","tag-gazprom","tag-greece","tag-greenenergy","tag-international-maritime-disputes","tag-lebanon","tag-maritime-boundaries-east-mediterranean","tag-maritime-disputes","tag-offshore","tag-oil","tag-opec","tag-pollution","tag-poverty-alleviation","tag-putin","tag-qatar","tag-rosneft","tag-roudi","tag-russia","tag-saudi","tag-solar","tag-solar-power","tag-straddling-hydrocarbons-reserves","tag-total","tag-trump","tag-turkey","tag-unclos","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}