The German government on Sunday unveiled a new multi-billion euro plan to help households cope with soaring prices and said it was eyeing windfall profits from energy companies to help fund the relief.
German businesses and consumers are feeling the pain from sky-high energy prices as Europe’s biggest economy seeks to extricate itself from reliance on Russian supplies in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Rapid measures to prepare for the coming cold season will ensure that Germany would “get through this winter,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at the unveiling of the 65-billion-euro ($65-billion) package.
The latest agreement, which brings total relief to almost 100 billion euros since the start of the Ukraine war, was hammered out overnight into Sunday by Germany’s three-way ruling coalition of Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens, and the liberal FDP.
Among the headlines are one-off payments to millions of vulnerable pensioners and a plan to skim off energy firms’ windfall profits.
The government’s 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 three-day maintenance.
The government had made “timely decisions” to avoid a winter crisis, Scholz said, including filling gas stores and restarting coal power plants.
However, preventative measures, including a drive to reduce consumption, have done little to break a sharp increase in household bills.
Read also; Germany’s Inflation Hits New High of 7.9% in May.
