The German government has pledged to use income from windfall taxes to help consumers cope with rising energy costs as the country weans itself from reliance on Russian energy imports.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on September 4 that the government will earmark 1.5 billion euros ($1.49 billion) to subsidize public transportation and will index some social benefits to match inflation.
In all the package amounts to 65 billion euros ($64.7 billion) in economic support, Scholz said.
“We will get through this winter,” Scholz said, adding that Germany has enough energy reserves to see it through the to next year, including gas stores and restarting coal-fired power plants.
Europe’s largest economy has been grappling with the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as new inflationary pressure on food and energy caused by Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine in February and the ongoing war there.
On September 2, Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom natural-gas giant said it would indefinitely suspend gas deliveries via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline because of an oil leak in turbines at the Portovaya compressor station.
Germany’s federal regulator and industrial giant Siemens Energy, which maintains the Portovaya equipment, disputed Gazprom’s justification for the shutdown, saying there were sufficient backup systems to keep the gas flowing despite the oil leak.
SEE ALSO: German Regulator And Siemens Dispute Russian Claims About Nord Stream DisruptionThe stoppage fueled fears that Russia will keep the pipeline offline for a longer period to put pressure on Western nations and break their unity in sanctioning Moscow over its war against Ukraine.
Scholz, of the Social Democratic Party, appeared before journalists together with his coalition partners, Green Party co-leader Omid Nouripour and Finance Minister Christian Lindner, head of the Free Democratic Party.
“We won’t let ourselves be divided,” Nouripour said, as all three leaders stressed unity. “We’ll do our part to make sure we live through a winter of solidarity.”