Nine state ministers from the CDU and CSU are against the planned introduction of a sugar tax. “We as ministers of the Union-run agricultural departments speak out against an excise tax on products containing sugar,” says a joint letter to Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Head of the Chancellery Nina Warken and Union parliamentary group leader Thorsten Frei (all CDU), which WELT has received. The letter is dated October 11th, the first day of the CDU executive committee's retreat.
The letter was signed by the Bavarian State Minister for Agriculture, Michaela Kaniber (CSU). In addition, from Baden-Württemberg's Agriculture Minister Marion Gentges, Berlin's Justice and Consumer Protection Senator Felor Badenberg, Hesse's Agriculture Minister Ingmar Jung, the North Rhine-Westphalia Agriculture Minister Silke Gorißen, the Rhineland-Palatinate Agriculture Minister Christine Schneider, Saxony-Anhalt's Economics Minister Michael Richter and the Economics Minister Colette Boos-John from Thuringia and Saxony State Minister for Agriculture, Georg-Ludwig von Breitenbuch (all CDU).
"A balanced diet with moderate sugar consumption is crucial in order to avoid various health problems. There are different ways to achieve more sugar reduction and not just the one way that leads through regulatory law," write the nine Union ministers. “We don’t think an additional tax on sugar or soft drinks is the right approach.” Rather, it requires “nutrition education, personal responsibility, education and innovation”.
The coalition agreement is clear; it relies on “voluntariness, incentives and personal responsibility” in nutrition. Consumers should be able to “make their own decisions”. "Nutritional education plays a special role in this. A sugar tax, on the other hand, relies on state control and unnecessarily puts an additional burden on the purchase of certain foods," said the ministers. “That doesn’t fit with the line agreed in the coalition.”
In addition, in times of rising costs for fertilizer and diesel, such an “intervention in the sugar market, which would result in falling revenues,” is said to be impossible for farms. Beverage manufacturers would have to adapt their recipes, which means an economic effort that has to be taken into account. There is no clear evidence of success in combating obesity, as the tax was intended to achieve.
The ministers refer to the decisions taken by the Christian Democrats. At its federal party conference in Stuttgart in February 2026, the CDU spoke out against the sugar tax. The Union later agreed with the SPD on a corresponding levy. Now the letter of protest from the Union agriculture ministers against the sugar tax - shortly after an agreement was apparently reached in the black-red federal government.
On Friday “Bild” reported on an agreement in the coalition. The tax should only apply to companies that bottle more than 70,000 liters per year, the newspaper reported. Accordingly, corporations like Coca-Cola could be taxed, but small companies could not. A further limit of one million liters per year should still be examined by the EU, and the tax should take effect on July 1, 2027 instead of January 1 as originally planned.
