At the urging of the SPD, the black-red coalition agreed to introduce a fuel price cap, despite the opposition of Katherina Reiche. The draft law that the Economics Minister has now presented shows her skepticism towards price controls.
The fuel price cap is coming - but it may never take effect. This is indicated by the draft law from the Federal Ministry of Economics, which is available to “Capital”. The Ministry of Economic Affairs has defined high hurdles for its use in the Maximum Fuel Price Act: Even extremely expensive gasoline is not enough. In order to be able to cap prices in this country, fuel prices would have to rise more than five percentage points more than the average for the other EU countries for three weeks in a row.
But even then the instrument does not work automatically. First the federal government must discuss whether to use it. Energy expert Steffen Bukold considers it “very unlikely” that the cap will even be used under these conditions. In addition, price increases at the turn of the year are hidden. The crucial measurement only begins with the data from the second full calendar week of 2027. Since the threshold must then be exceeded three weeks in a row, the cap can only take effect weeks after the turn of the year at the earliest.
Things get completely complicated in the countries. They are allowed to ignore a cap set by the federal government and allow higher or lower maximum prices - for individual counties, cities and even zip code areas. Certain gas stations can be exempted entirely. A nationwide fuel price cap could become a patchwork of different upper and lower price limits. And there isn't much time left for the experiment anyway: the legal basis expires after three months at the latest.
Doesn't protect against high prices
With this draft, the responsible federal minister, Katherina Reiche, counteracts the original idea of the law, which was intended to "protect motorists from excessively high prices," said Bukold. From this she develops an emergency measure for a crisis situation, which she defines in such a way that it is unlikely to occur.
This is not surprising, as the fuel price cap was never Reich's favorite project, but rather a project of the SPD: After the Social Democrats had been pushing for a legal cap based on the Belgian-Luxembourg model for months in view of the sharp rise in gasoline prices, the federal and state governments agreed in mid-September to introduce it by January 1, 2027 at the latest - against the obvious skepticism of Economics Minister Katherina Reiche, who feared interventions in the market and dangers for Refineries and supplies warned.
However, Reiche's draft is unlikely to be the last word yet. The Federal Ministry of Finance is also probably working on its own proposal for a fuel price cap. How far the work has progressed there and how the model differs from the Ministry of Economic Affairs' draft is still unclear. This means that the specific design of the fuel price cap within the federal government has apparently not yet been finally clarified.
The SPD reacted correspondingly cautiously to Reiche's draft. “The fuel price cap must come, and as quickly as possible,” said the deputy SPD parliamentary group leader Armand Zorn to the DPA. He welcomes the fact that the Ministry of Economic Affairs has now presented an initial proposal. What is crucial, however, is “whether it effectively limits the margins of the petroleum industry and noticeably relieves the burden on people.” At the same time, Zorn is putting pressure on the schedule: “Our goal must be for the fuel price cap to come into force before Christmas, if possible.”
