BERLIN — The German government is considering bringing emergency legislation to a vote in parliament next week that would allow it to spread rising gas costs more evenly between customers and companies and bail out ailing energy company Uniper.
The proposal to introduce a special levy on the price of gas comes amid growing warnings that Russia could use scheduled routine maintenance on the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline on July 11, which usually involves a short supply shutdown, as a pretext to cut off supplies on gas. to Germany and Europe for a longer period.
Such a scenario would put Germany, which gets about a third of its gas imports from Russia, into serious economic trouble and allow Moscow to punish Berlin for its support for Ukraine and Western sanctions against Russia.
The president of Germany’s Federal Network Agency, Klaus Müller, warned on Saturday that there was a risk that maintenance of the pipeline would turn into “longer-term political maintenance”. His words echoed remarks by Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habek, who warned on Thursday that a “total blockade” of Russian gas was possible.
Gas supplies from Moscow have been falling for weeks now, raising fears that Germany could slip into recession later this year.
Habek’s economy ministry is currently drafting a new regulation that will allow the government to spread rising gas costs evenly through a levy, officials say. Only some importers, such as Dusseldorf-based Uniper, are heavily dependent on Russian gas and now face a sharp increase in costs as they have to make up for reduced supplies with expensive last-minute purchases on the world market.
The envisaged system would seek to balance these rising prices by making all private customers and companies pay more through the levy, whether their gas comes from Russia or other suppliers such as Norway.
Until now, consumer protection laws have prohibited importers from passing on most of their increased gas prices to end users. But this system means Uniper, Germany’s biggest gas importer, is stuck with the higher costs and now risks extreme financial difficulty or even bankruptcy. The idea is for the German government to use revenue from the fee to help Uniper or other energy companies facing financial difficulties due to reduced gas supplies from Russia.
The levy could refinance rescue measures such as state aid or even direct government involvement for energy companies such as Uniper, which may soon be needed.
“I can confirm that the German government is in talks with Uniper about stabilization measures,” an Economy Ministry spokesman said, declining to comment further.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Thursday that Germany “has a practice of dealing with companies that fall into crises due to external shocks – as was the case with the COVID-19 pandemic, for example – and that therefore we are willing to do what is necessary.”
The Economy Ministry was still finalizing the details of the levy over the weekend, as a relevant regulation is due to be presented next week to allow for a vote before the summer break.
The skepticism comes from the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), one of three parties in Scholz’s traffic light coalition along with the Social Democrats and the Greens.
“The legal framework for markup on the price of gas should be thoroughly discussed. The traffic light coalition should not allow itself to deal with such a serious intervention in market prices with a quick fix,” said Michael Kruse, the FDP’s spokesman on energy policy.
Parliamentary approval of such a regulation would not necessarily mean the levy would be implemented immediately, but would give the government the flexibility to activate it when deemed necessary.
“If we create the legal basis, high conditions must apply to the activation [of the levy]Cruz said.
Germany already used a similar tax until recently to spread the costs of switching to renewable energy between customers and companies.
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