Above all, the energy prices are climbing and are also a burden on all private households. The traffic light wants to relieve the citizens. But the question of how is still hotly debated.
In the debate about climate money, SPD leader Saskia Esken defended the proposal by Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (also SPD) against criticism from coalition partner FDP.
A socially just designed climate money was agreed in the coalition agreement, Esken told the newspapers of the Funke media group (Tuesday). Because of the price increases, especially for energy, the promise must be implemented this year.
Income limits and staggering can be used to guarantee that the relief “reaches the people who need it most,” said Esken. In the coalition agreement, the SPD, Greens and FDP agreed on climate money as a “social compensation mechanism”. Heil is now proposing to pay a state subsidy once a year to people with a gross monthly income of less than 4,000 euros. He is also planning higher standard rates for people with basic security.
FDP leader Christian Lindner said on Monday evening in the ZDF “heute journal” that Heil’s concept was very bureaucratic, a “new redistribution pot” and did not correspond to the coalition agreement. The Minister of Finance is counting on a tax reform to ease the burden on middle- and low-income citizens.
