Back in September, people who work in Germany received a one-off 300-euro payment to help with rising energy costs. But half a year later, students across the country are still waiting for the 200-euro subsidy they were promised.
Germany’s students still waiting for 200-euro energy payment
Germany’s Students’ Union (Studierendenwerk) is demanding that the government deliver the 200-euro lump sum energy support payment that was promised to students back in September.
The one-off payment is part of Germany’s 65-billion-euro relief package designed to soften the blow as utility costs rise and the winter continues.
Speaking to the Stuttgarter Zeitung on Friday, chairperson of Studierendenwerk, Matthias Anbuhl said that “[Students] haven’t received anything yet, although they now have to pay more for gas and electricity.”
Anbuhl warned that the longer politicians continue to leave students in the dark about when they can expect the payment, the more likely they are to lose students’ trust. Since people studying in Germany pay a semester fee of a few hundred euros, the majority of which funds a city-wide student ticket for public transport, many were also left waiting months before they were reimbursed for the difference after the 9-euro ticket was made available from June to August 2022.
Education minister says wait is almost over
One hurdle that the German government has come up against while trying to issue payments to students' bank accounts is that there is no central database which stores the account details of every student enrolled in German universities.
Germany’s federal states are now trying to put together a library of banking details so the payment can be transferred. “We’re entering the home stretch on this,” Education Minister Bettina Stark-Witzinger of the FDP told the dpa.
Despite Stark-Witzinger’s promise, the coalition government are yet to give a specific date for when the payments can be expected, though it was previously said that the money would be delivered during the winter.
The Left Party have called the government’s slow movement on the policy “embarrassing”. “[Stark-Witzinger] must now clarify whether the end of winter means the calendar winter, the meteorological winter of simple a minister winter,” Left Party co-chair Janine Wissler mocked.
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