The employers of the industry warns that 34% of the country’s companies are threatened with bankruptcy due to the costs of electricity and gas
The Federal Minister of Economy, the green Robert Habeck, has promised this Thursday to the German business community a state rescue umbrella to face the rise in production costs due to the disproportionate increase in energy prices. “We are going to protect German companies and SMEs,” he said in his speech before the Bundestag, the federal Parliament, during the plenary session for the budget debates.
The environmentalist politician stressed that these measures and aid will have a limited validity, until the national and European efforts to curb the rise in electricity and gas prices have their effects. The federal deputy chancellor also referred to the already existing program to curb the energy costs of large industry and stressed that it will now also be opened to small and medium-sized companies. Habeck acknowledged, however, that in the long run it will be impossible “to deal with the rise in prices based on subsidies”, so the cabinet of Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz “will change the design of the electricity market so that the highest costs favorable benefits directly benefit the consumer.
The German head of Economy harshly criticized the Christian Democratic opposition in his speech, which in turn had charged the previous day against him with accusations of inefficiency. Habeck referred to the “sound of lack of self-criticism” of the Christian Democrats in the intervention of their parliamentary leader and party president, Friedrich Merz. “Dear Merz, the Union has ruled this country for 16 years, as have many federal states. There have been 16 years of failure in energy policy and it is up to us to fix in a few months what you have damaged, prevented or destroyed for 16 years”, said the environmentalist leader, who stressed that the ruling tripartite of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals has maintained from the first day a clear course for the promotion of renewable energies and energy efficiency, while the Conservatives dedicate themselves “to ring bells from the opposition and defend an economic policy of I want and I can’t.”
relief program
Meanwhile, German industries and companies are facing the new scenario with great concern, which includes the threat of suspending their production and even going bankrupt due to the high prices of electricity and gas. A study made public this Thursday by the Confederation of German Industry (BDI) reveals that 58% of firms say they are facing enormous challenges and that 34% fear even for their existence. Almost one in ten companies has already been forced to reduce its production or even to suspend it completely, says the analysis, which highlights that one in four companies is studying or has already begun to transfer part of its production and even jobs abroad. “The federal government must quickly approve a relief program for the economy,” demanded the president of the BDI, Siegfried Russwurm.
But also the Central Association of German Trades (ZDH) has sounded the alarm because many workshops and small businesses of manual professionals are in a critical situation. “We receive emergency calls every day from firms that are considering stopping their production because they are unable to cope with the enormously high electricity bills,” said the president of the ZDH, Hans Peter Wollseifer, who commented that the dynamics of bankruptcies is much more serious than in the most acute phases of the coronavirus pandemic. «A gigantic wave of insolvencies is underway and it is going to grow even more. Tens of thousands of jobs are at stake, “said the president of the German Association of Family Businesses, Reinhold Eben-Worlée, in the newspaper ‘Rheinische Post’.
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