(de-news.net) – The Growth Opportunities Act, which has already been passed by the Bundestag, has been approved by the Mediation Committee, the body in which the German Bundestag and the Bundesrat negotiate compromises. The law includes tax cuts for German companies as well as measures to reduce bureaucracy. The Federal Council will meet on March 22nd to decide on the law. The two Union parties there represented, which themselves had proposed an immediate package and are against relief for agricultural diesel, reject the law, while the SPD does not have a sufficient majority. What is more, the Union parties want to see the heating law abolish for the Growth Opportunities Act to find support. The law therefore threatens to fizzle out.
The SPD has called on the CDU-CSU to give in. Many business associations are in favor of the law, Federal Economics Minister Habeck (Greens) had said. The Union parties have not put forward how to counter-finance their own proposals. Therefore, their suggestions are dubious, he added. CDU General Secretary Linnemann replied that there were hardly any incentives for investments by small and medium-sized companies through the traffic light coalition’s projects. The Growth Opportunities Act originally amounted to seven billion Euros. After the states rejected many measures, it now only contains three billion Euros.
The Federal Association of German Employers’ Associations had previously warned of coalition political disputes between the coalition partners. The Growth Opportunities Act must be passed quickly, especially with regard to energy policy, the flexibilization of the labor market, and with a view to sociopolitical structural reforms.