{"id":282606,"date":"2025-11-14T13:18:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T13:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/282606\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T13:18:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T13:18:21","slug":"german-government-to-subsidize-industrys-energy-prices-in-bid-to-revitalize-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/282606\/","title":{"rendered":"German government to subsidize industry’s energy prices in bid to revitalize economy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BERLIN (AP) \u2014 Germany’s governing coalition agreed to subsidize energy prices for heavy industry over the next three years as it tries to breathe new life into a stubbornly slow economy<\/a> that is weighing on Europe’s performance.<\/p>\n

Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he and other coalition leaders agreed Thursday evening to introduce an electricity price of about 5 euro cents (6 U.S. cents) per kilowatt hour starting Jan. 1, through 2028, to \u201csupport companies that use a lot of electricity and face international competition.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Talks on the plan with the European Union’s executive commission are near-complete and \u201cwe assume we will get permission for this,” Merz said.<\/p>\n

The German economy, Europe’s biggest, has shrunk for the past two years and has not seen significant growth for much longer. The conservative Merz’s coalition government with the center-left Social Democrats has made revitalizing it a priority since taking office in early May.<\/p>\n

Still, results haven’t shown through yet, with gross domestic product stagnating<\/a> in the third quarter. This week, the government’s panel of independent economic advisers forecast it will grow by an unimpressive 0.9% next year after edging up 0.2% this year.<\/p>\n

The country\u2019s economy, which is heavy on manufacturing and exports, has been held back by multiple factors including high energy prices, competition from Chinese producers of autos and industrial machinery, a lack of skilled workers and excessive bureaucracy.<\/p>\n

The government has launched a program to encourage investment<\/a> and set up a fund of 500 billion euros ($581.4 billion) to pour money into Germany\u2019s creaking infrastructure over the next 12 years<\/a>. The government promises to cut red tape and speed up the country\u2019s lagging digitization.<\/p>\n

ING economist Carsten Brzeski, who put the current energy price at some 15 euro cents (17 U.S. cents) per kilowatt hour, said Friday that the planned subsidy \u201csends a strong signal and could provide industry not only short-term relief but also clarity and stability for years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holger L\u00f6sch, deputy managing director of the Federation of German Industries, said the subsidized price would \u201chelp particularly energy-intensive industrial companies to remain competitive internationally,\u201d adding that he hopes the EU allows Germany the flexibility to reduce a large number of companies’ costs.<\/p>\n

Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil put the expected cost of the measure at between 3 and 5 billion euros ($3.4 billion and $5.8 billion).<\/p>\n

Coalition leaders also agreed to cut a tax on airline tickets starting in July, something the air transport industry has long demanded. The measures will need parliamentary approval.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERLIN (AP) \u2014 Germany’s governing coalition agreed to subsidize energy prices for heavy industry over the next three…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,128528,46,128527,44503,128531,6816,10817,10816,128530,128529],"class_list":{"0":"post-282606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-coalition-government","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-electricity-price","14":"tag-energy-prices","15":"tag-euro-cents","16":"tag-european-union","17":"tag-friedrich-merz","18":"tag-germany","19":"tag-heavy-industry","20":"tag-kilowatt-hour"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}