Electricity tax: How black and red a promise breaks ice cold

Anyone who previously performed all too arrogantly in the Ruhr area and showed little empathy for the simple people was quickly awarded the contemptuous title “Graf Koks from the Gasanstalt”. Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil has now deserved this award. Because he led the people who trusted him around the nose.

In the election campaign – in accordance with the then Chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz – he had promised full -bodiedly: we reduce electricity tax to the European minimum. So it is also a “immediate measure” in the coalition agreement, without ifs and buts, financing reservation or not. In the end, the kilowatt hour should be cheaper for everyone, even for the battered private households. The SPD man has now received this promise-with a cool casualty. Only industry as well as agriculture and forestry will be granted in the future. The tax authorities remain hard for private individuals (and other commercial).

The decision of the finance chief is ominous in two ways because it sends false signals. On the one hand, she nourishes people’s displeasure, the government grabs them deeper and deeper. In fact, the state already benefits from the dimensions of energy sales: procurement and sales only make up a good 40 percent of the price when electricity, the rest are taxes, taxes and network charges. The coalition weighs. In the future, the federal government will take on a significantly higher proportion of the costs of the network expansion, which will reduce the network charges for consumers and thus the electricity tariff. When and how much is still completely open. Only one thing is certain: with the five cents relief it will be nothing.

Episode two of the decision is even more serious. Because it brakes climate protection. On the one hand, the tender upswing that is currently ongoing when selling electric cars, which is so important for the German automotive industry, is in danger because the longing to relax in the charging tariffs on public columns is now failing. The high diesel subsidies, on the other hand, are not touched. For example, the “fuel” for e-car drivers without a private wall box remains not uncommon than the diesel for combustion enthusiasts. Fatal, because about a quarter of German greenhouse gas emissions can be assigned to traffic. How should the turn succeed?

On the other hand, many Germans will pass the newly sparkled desire for power -powered heat pumps again if the gas storage levy may be more cheaply cheaper by deleting the gas storage. How should Germany progress in its way to climate neutrality? The many gas and oil heaters in the houses alone cause around ten percent of total German CO₂ emissions. Over five million devices urgently need to be replaced.

The responsible business and energy minister Katherina Reiche commented on the electricity tax bluff at the day of the industry in Berlin with the casual words that coalition contract meets financial possibility and reality. For this she can pick up the title “Countess Koks from the Gasanstalt”. He applies to them even better. People around them already guess that Reiche has not really said goodbye to their old jobs inside: as a gas manager of Eon and managing director at the Association of Local Companies, who operate thousands of kilometers of gas networks.

As is known, the Minister of Energy has been struggling with the strict EU climate goals. Further surprises threaten. Not a good day for the motherland of the energy transition. The coalition should rethink your decision again.