Franziska Giffey (SPD), Governing Mayor of Berlin Photo: picture alliance/dpa
From BZ/dpa
How future relief for citizens in the energy crisis can be financed remains a contentious issue among the federal states from the point of view of Berlin’s Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey.
“That’s the point where we couldn’t quite agree,” said Giffey on Wednesday evening after a meeting of the prime ministers of the federal states. In particular, the question of whether new loans can be taken out for financing beyond the limitation of the debt brake “we could not finally clarify,” said Giffey.
The SPD-led A-states had made a protocol statement and explicitly advocated such a possibility.
On the other hand, Giffey described the agreement of the countries that an energy saving cap to limit energy prices was necessary as the “core result” of the talks on Wednesday. Giffey emphasized the unanimous decision “for the introduction of an energy price cap for electricity, for gas and for heat”.
The special conference of the prime ministers was originally intended to be the prelude to subsequent federal-state talks. Because of the corona infection of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), the joint round has now been postponed to October 4th.