Christian Vietmeyer, managing director of the steel and metal business association Stahl- und Metallverarbeitung e.V. (WSM), makes a clear statement with regard to the coalition’s agreement on reducing the price for electricity:
“This bundle on which the Federal government has agreed, if at all is going to help those few corporations with an exceptionally high consumption of electricity. For the 5,000 medium sized enterprises in the steel and metal processing industry it is, however, a slap in the face.”
The WSM represents companies which do not produce steel, but however use steel to manufacture components which are used, for example, in the construction of wind power plants, electric motors or railways.
Vietmeyer continues:
“The plan of the Federal government means that energy intensive companies, which process steel and metal and thereby make them usable at all for the energy and mobility transformation, will pay more than double for their electricity compared to those who produce the steel.”
WSM calculation: Satisfying for corporations, a catastrophe for medium sized businesses
Energy intensive corporations can assume their electricity costs to be around 8.3 cent/kWh due to lower grid usage fees and an extension of existing reductions for fees, related cost allocations and taxes in the coming year. This price results for calculations done by the steel and metal business association WSM.
But the measures that have been planned have very little effect, however, on the situation of medium sized steel and metal processing businesses. The WSM assumes that measures by the Federal government will not reduce the electricity cost for its member businesses beyond 16.3 cent/kWh.
The managing director of the WSM adds:
“Considering the current market price, medium sized businesses will in the future pay rather exactly double the amount for their electricity compared to energy intensive corporations. Our businesses are paying 2.5 times the electricity fees of their competitors in France, 2.4 times the electricity price in China and 3.3 times the electricity price in the USA.
One look at these figures demonstrates that while the measures planned by the Federal government might satisfy energy intensive corporations, for medium sized businesses, they are a catastrophe. Internationally, we will keep on losing our competitiveness, which will inevitably lead to production capacities and jobs being moved abroad.”
Owners of medium sized companies are losing patience with the work of the Federal government
While the stock prices of energy intensive corporations significantly rose after the government’s plans became known, medium sized manufacturers are reacting with both a lack of understanding and shock.
Vietmeyer says:
“Business owners and representatives of the workforce are losing more and more patience with regard to the politics in Berlin. We notice this significantly through the many instances of feedback we receive for our campaign ‘Wir. Formen. Fortschritt.’. With this campaign we are asking the Federal government to finally pay more attention to the problems of energy intensive medium sized enterprises.
This is exactly what has been missing for a long time: “We absolutely cannot comprehend why FDP faction leader Christian Dürr wants to sell the coalition’s agreement on the price of electricity as a ‘grand success’. For energy intensive medium sized enterprises, this agreement, which all but totally ignores our needs, means that our businesses’ ability to compete is in greater danger than ever. For large businesses and corporations, the agreement may indeed be a ‘grand success’, but for our businesses, it is anything but.”
