"Unfortunate situation": Habeck's ministry defends the end of the e-car premium
The spokesperson added: "We very much regret this, and we know that it is an unfortunate situation for those who had hoped for the funding." However, the short-term expiry of the funding program had become necessary "because there is no longer enough money available to consider applications received after Sunday".
The decision to end the funding at short notice had been "determined together with the Federal Chancellery ", the spokesperson added. "We therefore reject the one-sided criticism of this."
According to information from ministry circles, the accusation of "one-sided criticism" referred to statements from the SPD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, which had described the short-term expiry of funding on 17 December as "extremely unfortunate" and called on Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) to "organize a more reliable transition here".
However, "all funds available in the 2023 financial year have already been exhausted", according to Habeck's ministry. The funds of 209 million euros still earmarked for 2024 "will only be sufficient if the funding ends with immediate effect".
According to AFP information, around 1,400 applications were recently received every day, with an average funding amount of 4,000 euros. Every additional day of applications costs the state around 5.6 million euros. If applications had been stopped at the end of the year, as had initially been expected, additional funds of around 80 million euros would have been required.
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Source: www.stern.de
