Robert Habeck, the Green candidate for Chancellor, is demanding a state subsidy for apprentices who cannot afford a driving license. Additionally, the advertising cost allowance should be increased and electricity prices should be lowered, he told Bild am Sonntag.
The high costs of driving licenses, around 4,000 euros, are a problem for apprentices in rural areas, according to the Minister of Economics: “Therefore, I propose that we subsidize the driving license, with, say, 1,000 euros, if the training company adds another 500 euros.” It should not be the case that the training fails because the driving license is not made.
Furthermore, Habeck proposed significantly increasing the tax allowance for advertising costs. “One could increase the so-called advertising costs, which we can all set off, to 1,500 euros, for example.” This would mean that “half of the people who pay taxes in Germany would no longer have to submit any receipts.” Habeck said, “It would make everything much simpler.”
He also suggested that the immense costs of building a new energy infrastructure should be removed from the electricity price and financed by a special fund from the state. “If one immediately loads the costs onto the electricity price, as in the old world, when we almost had a stable system, then that would be a costly cup of tea. Therefore, I think this must be prefunded. In plain language, remove the network fees and the electricity tax from the electricity price” said Habeck. This would lead to a significant relief.
The Green politician also proposes a billionaires’ tax. The revenue should be used to renovate schools in the country, he told Bild am Sonntag. We must also invest in better school equipment and stronger support for education personnel. “It costs money. I don’t hide the fact that I see a financing source that we have not yet utilized.”
He also mentioned: “There are not many, but some billionaires, really super-rich. And if one were to tax a small part of their wealth, then one would have about five to six billion euros. And if one took that for education, then it would make sense, in my opinion, because education also represents access to upward mobility.”
Habeck, the father of four sons, described his experiences: “I still have a good image of it and also in my nose, how it smelled on the toilets.” The Minister of Economics established a connection between the buildings of the district savings banks and the schools: “If the schools looked like our savings banks, people would voluntarily stay longer.”
“It would be super” said Habeck, “to renovate the schools and kindergartens well in the next four to five years.” For this, he has proposed investing in public institutions through a large fund, also in schools and kindergartens. Habeck said, “It’s not just a question of money, that schools and kindergartens look good, that they don’t stink, and that one feels good there. That costs money. One must finance it from the fund, I mean.”
Regarding the German automobile manufacturers, Habeck holds their bosses responsible for the sales problems of electric cars and the crisis of the entire industry. The electric cars are “a knowingly and strategically taken problem, because the German automobile manufacturers have built their strategy this way.”
He has discussed this with the companies for years, but the German automakers had always said: “We will start with electric mobility in the upper market segment, the cars are more expensive at first, until the technology is mass-produced. And then they said, if a car costs 80,000 or 100,000 euros, it can also cost 105,000 euros. No one is interested in the price segment. And then we will gradually go down, so that we have more experience and produce larger volumes, when we are at the 30,000 or 20,000 euro cars.”
Habeck criticized the VW Group in particular: “VW means Volkswagen. They must produce an electric car for 20,000 euros. The Japanese are already doing that, and the Chinese will soon do it too. That is a critical phase for the German automobile industry – that is the German leading industry.”
But he believes that the turnaround for the German automakers is still possible. However, “they are behind the wave. If the automobile industry does not have a problem, then it is that it is too fast. We must support them. We must improve the conditions, the charging stations, the prices for electricity, everything must be better. But it must go into the future and not make the past a museum.