Germany must wind down the energy support as soon as possible, according to the European Commission.
In its annual assessment of national budgets, the EU executive highlighted that “most member states are projected to phase out the remaining energy measures as soon as possible.”
Yet Germany — together with France, Croatia, Luxembourg, Malta and Portugal — is “projected to have substantial measures still in force in 2024.”
The failure to meet the EU’s guidance — issued earlier this year — to start reducing outlays to help households and businesses means that Germany was found not fully compliant with the bloc’s recommendations.
The commission’s warning comes as Europe’s biggest economy is in turmoil following a court decision last week, which forbade the use of off-balance sheet funding to target climate change. That ruling led the Finance Ministry to impose an emergency spending freeze.
The EU’s cutoff date for the verdict on the budget was the end of October, so it didn’t take the latest developments into account, according to a senior official.
