On some news sites around Germany this morning....there's this hyped-up idea being openly discussed....dragging the EU into the escalating natural gas/electricity crisis.
Who is calling for EU action? It leads mostly back presently to Spain and France. I suspect in a week or two....because of public forum discussions in Germany....even the current Merkel coalition (Scholz hasn't arrived yet) will agree....maybe the EU can do something.
So the question is....what can they accomplish at the EU?
They could go and write a simple five-line bill, and pass it in less than a week.....ordering all taxes related to natural gas and electricity to be cut in half.....meaning a massive tax revenue hole existing. But if you asked me....would this even help?
I checked with the 2020 numbers on electricity....around 53-percent of what you pay for electricity is related to taxation/levies. That escalation has been going on since 2014. Around that same time period....the tax/levy situation on industry use of electricity also went up in a major way.
If you gaze at numbers for taxation/levies on natural gas? Those numbers show a 4-billion Euro income for the German government. Back in 1999, the tax jumped from .18 cents per kWh (that was the normal tax stance) to a present rate of .55 cents per kWh (at least in 2020).
If the Germans were ordered by the EU to do a six-month pause on the .55 cent rate (down to .27 cents)? That might have a huge affect, but there's a ton of money missing out of the tax revenue bucket then.
Will the EU even have the guts to go this direction? I seriously doubt it. They might talk about this, and maybe create a short-term 5-percent cut on natural gas taxation....just to say they did something.
So a more appropriate question is....shouldn't someone go and address the cost factor of the government in general, and just say that maybe it's time to do a 10-percent cut in government 'services'?
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