The German government on Sunday unveiled a new multi-billion-euro plan to help households cope with soaring prices, and said it was eyeing windfall profits from energy companies to help fund the relief.
German businesses and consumers are feeling the pain from sky-high energy prices, as Europe’s biggest economy seeks to extricate itself from reliance on Russian supplies in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Rapid measures to prepare for the coming cold season will ensure that Germany would “get through this winter”, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at the unveiling of the 65b-euro package.
The latest agreement, which brings total relief to almost 100 billion euros since the start of the Ukraine war, was hammered out overnight into Sunday by Germany’s three-way ruling coalition of Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens.—AFP
