Lars Feld, the former economic advisor to Christian Lindner, considers the fuel discount a political mistake in hindsight. “The fuel discount of the summer of 2022 did not meet my expectations of a market-oriented climate protection” he told the “World on Sunday”.
He had not been able to prevent the energy tax reduction on fuels, which Lindner had pushed through, “because it was not within my competence” he said. However, the price reduction at the pumps was limited and not that expensive, “so one can say in hindsight that the fuel discount did not harm the FDP politically, nor was it really harmful for climate protection.”
According to Feld, the breakdown of the traffic light coalition could also have been caused by the pension plans pushed by the SPD. “The pension package could have been the next to break the coalition” he said. In the sequence of legislative bills, the 2025 federal budget had come first, however.
Many decisions of the traffic light government had been made in a rush, “I have often seen draft bills during the traffic light era that lacked the necessary level” he said. It was not a lack of experts in the ministries, but “ideology was at play here and there.