Austria succeeds, Germany fails: the payment of climate money is delayed. The FDP is now shifting responsibility to Merkel and Habeck.
Berlin – The CO₂ price rises, refueling and heating are becoming more expensive. The federal government actually wants to give part of this increase back to the people. As stipulated in the coalition agreement, the population should be relieved through climate money. Details and timing of implementation remained open for a long time. In mid-January the FDP positioned itself and declared that one is open to discussions about a payout from 2025. A clear commitment sounds different, but why does the payout actually fail?
“We need the necessary prioritization for climate money, including from Habeck”
The FDP's digital policy spokesman, Maximilian Funke-Kaiser, sees a reason for this in the current budget austerity measures. “It always depends on the money available,” says Funke-Kaiser in an interview with IPPEN.MEDIA. “We can only spend each euro once.” And further: “We now need the necessary prioritization for climate money, including from Mr. Habeck.”
Christoph Meyer, the parliamentary group vice-president responsible for budgetary issues, also took the Vice Chancellor to task. Meyer accused Habeck of having “not yet provided any funds for climate money”. “Unfortunately, the Climate Ministry allocated all income from CO₂ pricing to other climate projects instead of relieving the burden on people,” he told the AFP news agency.
Finance Minister Christian Lindner previously pointed out that the income from the CO₂ price was currently being used for climate protection projects, for example to promote heating, building renovations or green steel production. Habeck repeatedly refers to the abolition of the EEG levy. “Next year, 85 percent of the revenue from the CO₂ price will flow directly back to citizens and the economy,” he promised in December. “This is climate money via the price of electricity.”
“Government didn’t do it”: Funke-Kaiser takes Merkel cabinet to task
Digital expert Funke-Kaiser sees another reason for the slow payment process in the Merkel government. “For years we had a government that could have enabled the infrastructure for direct payments to citizens, but didn’t.” The digital sector did not play a major role in the first two Merkel governments; in 2009 the Ministry of Transport was expanded to become the Ministry for Transport and Digital Infrastructure. First Alexander Dobrindt and later Andreas Scheuer (both CSU) were responsible.
The current official title for Volker Wissing is Federal Minister for Digital Affairs and Transport. His FDP actually wants to link the tax ID of all citizens with the corresponding IBAN. However, this turns out to be more complicated than expected. “Setting up a digital payout mechanism is not that easy,” says Funke-Kaiser.
Austria shows Germany how it's done
Austria shows how it can work. In Germany's neighboring country there is a central platform for citizens' digital data. In this way, people can receive targeted support. An example: Single parents or single-earning parents with a gross monthly salary of less than 2,000 euros receive 60 euros per month and per child. Completely automatically, i.e. without an application. “It is important to me to bring digitalization to the people,” says Digitization State Secretary Florian Tursky (ÖVP). “What used to be difficult and only possible via an application now works automatically. This saves citizens time and the authorities a lot of effort.”
Climate money in Austria amounts to 110 to 220 euros annually. How much should be paid out in Germany is still unclear. The SPD wants “socially graded” climate money that should only be paid to households with small and medium incomes. The FDP rejects this as parliamentary group deputy Lukas Köhler told our editorial team. Climate money requires “a simple, quickly effective and unbureaucratic path. If we use it as a redistributive tool, we miss the real goal: gaining more support for climate protection.”
For party friend Funke-Kaiser, it's not just about technical details: “Once the technical hurdles have been ove
rcome, success still depends on the financial resources for the procedures. It depends on future budget negotiations.” In the current session week from January 29th to February 2nd, the Bundestag is dealing with budgetary issues. The traffic lights are already heading towards the next crisis. At least 13 billion euros are missing for 2025 – the year in which climate money can be paid out. The Waiting for the climate money could continue with this. (as)
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