High petrol costs: “Disgraced to the bone” – Aiwanger criticizes the federal authorities’s 12 o’clock regulation | EUROtoday

Bavaria’s Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger (Free Voters) has sharply criticized the federal authorities for its to date unsuccessful efforts to cut back gas costs. The authorities “embarrassed itself to the bone” with the 12 o’clock rule; Economics Minister Katherina Reiche and Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz ought to have foreseen this and stopped it.

On the information channel WELT TV, Aiwanger mentioned: “In my eyes, it’s embarrassing. Everyone whistled about it from the rooftops. Every normal citizen out there knew that this couldn’t work. If I say you can only increase the price once a day, that would make the prices lower. So: Complete blow in the water. The government is embarrassed to the bone here.” “Of course the people in power are to blame, that is the Economics Minister and the Chancellor. They should have foreseen this and said: ‘We won’t do that kind of crap!’ And they just lost time. Maybe that was the goal, to waste time and say: Then we’ve already done something. And nothing happened.”

The increase in the commuter allowance now favored by Economics Minister Reiche is also “not effective enough, far too delayed and does not affect everyone exactly as they need it – we need relief at the pump and not through taxes at some point afterwards.”

Aiwanger also calls for the CO₂ tax to be abolished: “That’s nearly 20 cents! And then the power tax must be decreased by 10, 20 cents. We have sufficient leeway there. Then now we have a number of 10 cents of room within the system. They have to return down, then the value may even go down.”

“Golden calf, CO₂ tax, must be slaughtered now”

Aiwanger believes the federal government’s refusal to suspend or even abolish the CO₂ tax is wrong: “This CO₂ tax is in fact additionally politically and ideologically based mostly. This can also be the Greens’ wishful assemble. They will not be within the authorities, nevertheless it all nonetheless performs into this mainstream. And this golden calf, the CO₂ tax, should now be slaughtered.”

Aiwanger doesn’t see any problems with counter-financing a CO₂ exposure: “This stimulates the economic system. It’s a milkmaid’s calculation to suppose that what we lose in taxes on the pump will probably be gone for good. It’s the opposite means round. The economic system is presently affected by these excessive gas costs. That’s damaging the economic system. If the economic system had been doing higher once more, we might have extra tax income once more. So this discount on the pump is being refinanced by higher financial efficiency.”