Third relief package for Germany
In view of the soaring energy prices, the German government has announced a third relief package to support citizens and the economy in the crisis. The new package which includes electricity price caps, one-off payments, heating cost subsidies and a new citizen's allowance amounts to over 65 billion euros.
No endless cash supply
Handelsblatt criticises the coalition for not yet coming up with a solution for financing the relief package:
“This has long since ceased to be a matter of repaying the national debt of 2.4 trillion euros. Our children and grandchildren will have to deal with that. Today, people look askance at the trophies collected by the SPD, the Greens and the FDP for their own clientele each time they announce a new relief package. The difference to former times is that the economy is no longer humming along. The state coffers are emptying simply due to the hike in interest rates. One percent higher interest rates means an additional burden of 14 billion euros a year for the state. Despite the chancellor' assurances there simply is not enough money for everyone.”
A show of strength from the coalition
The package has a double symbolic effect, says Der Standard:
“It was obviously important to Scholz and his team to present a package to counter the fear. The first message is: we still have a few things up our sleeve, the state will step in if someone can no longer get along on their own. But behind that there is another message that Scholz wanted to convey: we can get through this. In the past few weeks, many doubted whether the coalition government would be able to withstand the pressure it has been under for months because of the war in Ukraine. ... If the German chancellor had presented nothing or too little at the weekend, it would have been disastrous.”