On the evening of 6 November, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz actually wanted to finalise his new „agenda for economic growth and jobs“ with his coalition partners. Instead, the government fell apart.

Nevertheless, it is worth taking a look at the four-point paper. After all, the measures, which are not being implemented for the time being, were intended to save the German economy from deindustrialisation. The pressure to act has recently increased due to the tax estimate, and the latest forecasts of imminent stagnation.

Compared to the minutiae negotiated in the paper, the Chancellor's pathos in dismissing Finance Minister Christian Lindner seems a little overdone („I see myself compelled to take this step in order to avert damage to our country“).

One of the four points is the proposal to help ensure affordable energy costs by capping grid fees for companies. For the coming year, the transmission grid fees should be frozen at the current level with a subsidy of 1.3 billion euros from the federal budget. In view of the total amount of transmission grid fees of 10 billion euros, this would not have made a decisive difference. Especially as details were left open as to how a fixed „guarantee cap“ would have guaranteed that the costs of grid expansion would no longer increase in the medium and long term.

In any case, even this planned minor relief for energy-intensive companies will not materialise for the time being. This is bad news for sectors such as chemicals, steel and glass. If a new coalition gets its act together, more vigour and less pathos would be desirable when it comes to relieving companies of energy costs. Because the entire green restructuring of the energy supply is stuck. The construction of new gas-fired power plants is not getting off the ground, and hydrogen production is also making slow progress. These are poor conditions for putting a stop to the threat of deindustrialisation.