BERLIN: Germany’s ruling Social Democrats (SPD) will propose further measures to help its citizens cope with rising energy prices, including another discounted national transport ticket, a document seen by Reuters showed on Sunday (Aug 28).
Households are facing higher energy costs after the German gas market operator set a levy from October to help utilities cover the cost of replacing Russian supplies.
With energy prices rising following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the government has already introduced two relief packages this year, including a €9 (US$8.96) transport ticket allowing travel anywhere in Germany that expires on Aug 31.
A third relief package would include a similar ticket but with a less heavily discounted price tag of 49 euros per month, according to a draft proposal, which the Sueddeutsche Zeiting was first to report on.
The proposal also envisages direct payments for middle and low-income households, measures to protect tenants from evictions if they cannot pay their ancillary bills and reforms to housing allowance to include heating costs.
It also considers setting incentives for citizens to save gas, pushes renewable energies expansion and seeks to protect from insolvency municipal utilities that are pushed to pay higher prices for gas.
The SPD also wants to discuss introducing an electricity and gas price cap, with conditions still to be determined.
The party will also propose a readjustment of the gas levy that will come into force in October, so energy companies making profits cannot also benefit from it, the document showed.
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