Agriculture - Agriculture Minister Hauk: Improvements to the traffic lights insufficient
Agriculture Minister Peter Hauk (CDU) considers the improvements announced by the federal government for agricultural diesel and vehicle tax to be insufficient. Hauk said on Thursday in Stuttgart that farmers had expected a proposal from the traffic light that would relieve them. "Now there is an offer on the table that does not bring any improvement. The traffic lights are trying to satisfy the farmers, but they will not succeed with this offer."
Maintaining the exemption from vehicle tax is the right thing to do, but wanting to gradually reduce the agricultural diesel subsidy is still a slap in the face for farmers. "The gradual abolition of the agricultural diesel subsidy is nothing more than a structural break in installments." In all neighboring EU states, agricultural diesel continues to receive tax breaks, in some cases even considerable ones, partly because there are currently no marketable alternative drives for agriculture.
The German Farmers' Association has called for a week of action starting on Monday. Farmers' President Joachim Rukwied said in Berlin about the Federal Government's relenting: "This can only be a first step. Our position remains unchanged: Both proposals for cuts must be taken off the table. This is clearly also about the future viability of our industry and the question of whether domestic food production is still desirable at all."
The state farmers' association is coordinating the actions in the south-west. Protests are to take place in several districts. Among other things, around 1,000 tractors are expected to attend a rally in Ravensburg next Monday, according to the local authority. The farmers are planning a rally under the slogan "Farmers' protest - it's 5 past 12".
In the districts of Böblingen and Ludwigsburg, considerable traffic disruptions must be expected from 5.00 a.m. on Monday, the police said. This is due to several registered meetings and rallies. Some of these would involve up to 100 vehicles.
According to the federal government, the abolition of the preferential tax treatment for forestry and agriculture will be waived in order to avoid the "sometimes considerable bureaucratic effort" for the companies concerned.
The tax concessions for agricultural diesel are to be gradually reduced in order to give the affected companies more time to adjust. According to the federal government, the rate of relief will be reduced by 40 percent in 2024. In 2025 and 2026, there will be a further reduction of 30 percent in each year, meaning that there will no longer be a subsidy for quantities consumed in 2026. The reimbursement of the quantities consumed in 2023 in 2024 will remain unchanged.
Green parliamentary group leader Andreas Schwarz said that all farmers could breathe a sigh of relief. "The efforts of the Green parliamentary group in the state parliament have paid off in that a solution was finally found in Berlin." And Georg Heitlinger, agricultural policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group in the state parliament, commented on the agreement that had now been reached, saying that it was very good news that the federal government had now withdrawn its plans for harsh financial cuts in agriculture.
Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) had agreed on a package of measures in mid-December to plug billions of euros of holes in the budget following a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court. This also included the abolition of tax benefits on agricultural diesel and the motor vehicle tax exemption for farmers.
The plans had triggered massive protests from farmers and were also controversial within the coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP. Rukwied described the cutback plans as unreasonable and said that the coalition should withdraw them completely.
Specifically, it is about the regulation that agricultural businesses can receive a partial refund of the energy tax on diesel - with a refund of 21.48 cents per liter. Another issue is that agricultural and forestry vehicles are exempt from vehicle tax.
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Source: www.stern.de
