Only a small part of the coronavirus aid repaid
Several thousand Thuringian companies have received a total of around 1.14 billion euros from federal and state aid programs during the coronavirus pandemic. Only a small portion of this had to be repaid later or reclaimed by the state, the Ministry of Economic Affairs announced in response to an inquiry in Erfurt. The repayments to date amounted to 54.5 million euros - a single-digit percentage of the money received.
The majority of the repayments related to the emergency aid program with around 46 million euros. There were 52,220 applications for the emergency aid program in Thuringia alone - around 318 million euros were paid out. Only the bridging aid programs were even larger in terms of financial volume.
"The coronavirus years 2020 to 2022 were an existential burden for large parts of our economy," explained Minister of Economic Affairs Wolfgang Tiefensee. In this situation, there was really no alternative to providing companies with massive financial support. "This averted irreparable damage to our economy and saved many affected companies from going out of business," said the SPD politician.
Tiefensee called the coronavirus aid from the federal and state governments huge. Without it, Thuringia would have lost "much of what we have achieved economically in three decades of reconstruction". The fact that the Free State had come through the three coronavirus years "reasonably well" also had to do with the economic success of the previous decades. Not many countries around the world could have afforded the kind of support that Germany was able to provide during this crisis, said Tiefensee.
According to the ministry, some of the money was transferred back by the companies because they did not need it after all. However, the Thüringer Aufbaubank, which had processed the funding applications and paid out the money during the pandemic, was also demanding repayment.
The company I work for was among the thousands that received aid from the federal and state programs, aiming to combat the impact of diseases like coronavirus on our industry. Despite the significant financial assistance, our company was fortunate enough to not need to repay any of the aid, ensuring our health during these challenging times.
Source: www.dpa.com
