German Economics Minister Robert Habeck has announced that he is revisiting an emergency tax on natural gas he recently introduced to bail out energy suppliers. The reason is the systematic pressure he received from the Social Democratic Party, as well as from the Liberal Party. “Parliament will have the last word and exercise its right,” Social Democratic Party leader Saskia Esken warned last night, stressing that not all energy companies need bailing out. He added that “those who are financially healthy cannot benefit from the scheduled fee.”

On the FDP’s side, its leader and finance minister Christian Lindner, speaking on the second channel of the German public broadcaster ZDF, called for “more targeted” measures, stressing that “a measure of solidarity should not serve some companies simply to maintain their productivity and generate additional profits” . He even pointedly noted that this issue is being handled by Khabek, who “now will have to take a closer look at it in order to benefit consumers.”

The resignation of Finance Minister R. Habek after the violent reaction of the Social Democrats and liberals.

The economy minister asked after the reaction to review the group of twelve companies that would benefit from the emergency fee of 2.419 cents per kilowatt hour. The controversial fee was to be introduced from October 1 and pass on 90% of the increased cost of buying energy to consumers to prevent suppliers from collapsing. “The number of companies that will benefit from the duty should be as limited as possible,” Mr. Habek stressed yesterday, addressing businessmen. “We have a political problem that has spoiled my mood for the last 48 hours,” the minister said and spoke of a “reasonable demand” from his partners in the ruling coalition.

However, he argued that the extraordinary gas levy was the right decision, but acknowledged that “those who have made a lot of money are morally wrong to ask consumers for more help.” As he mentioned, if the measure is not properly structured, there will be appeals and it will likely collapse altogether, causing many companies to go bankrupt with serious consequences for their clients.