Germany’s climate crazy economics and climate minister is thinking about taxing gas cars to make them more expensive than their gas counterparts.
Robert Habeck, Germany’s Federal Green party economics and climate minister, is considering increasing the tax levied on new petrol and diesel cars in the hopes of making their electric counterparts look cheaper.
Habeck is reportedly considering implementing the measure at a time when the public are experiencing a seismic cost of living crisis, with those in Germany in particular in danger of a cold winter as a result of Moscow potentially deciding to cut off the country’s supply of Russian gas.
According to Handelsblatt though, it does not seem like this possibility is distracting the economics minister from his own climate-crazy agenda, with Habeck eyeing up a massive tax hike on newly registered combustion engine cars.
The publication claims to have seen documents from the country’s economic ministry which argue that a CO2 emission-linked tax would significantly increase the price of gas cars and render “as a result, e-cars are cheaper than the respective combustion cars”.
In particular, the document reportedly picks out two electric vehicles manufactured by local manufacturer Volkswagen, saying that the purpose of the tax would to render both of these options less expensive than the popular gas-burning Volkswagen Golf.
Also reportedly being considered are increases in tax for some company-registered cars that utilise combustion engines.
This scheme to dramatically increase the price of petrol and diesel cars in Germany comes at a time when the general public is struggling under a cost of living crisis largely brought about by the country’s own COVID, economics and foreign policy decisions.
With the price of energy having risen substantially since the start of the year while the value of the Euro hits all-time lows against the dollar, Germans are also now bracing for potential gas shortages over the winter.
While both authorities in Berlin and Brussels are now taking a number of steps to alleviate such a crisis, it appears that the overall impact of such measures could be limited depending on whether or not Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin decides to cut Germany and/or Europe off from Russian gas supplies, with it being feared by some that such a cut-off would see around €200 billion wiped from the German economy.
While Reuters is reporting that it now looks unlikely that Russia will implement a complete cut-off in the near future, Putin has been far more cryptic about future exports, putting particular pressure on the German government to open up the sanctioned Nord Stream 2 pipeline due to the original Nord Stream pipeline allegedly sustaining damage that cannot supposedly be repaired under current western sanctions.
“We have another route ready — it’s Nord Stream 2, which can be launched,” Putin suggested, though emphasised that even this pipeline would not operate at full tilt due to issues supposedly to do with domestic Russian consumption.
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