Germans fed up with gas increase

Associated Press Friday, June 9, 2000

BERLIN--It's not just hitting Germans at the pump: Rising gas prices are pushing up the price of pizza delivery, a taxi ride, even the cost of a locksmith driving to the rescue.

German newspapers regularly display pictures of gas station price signs, as the auto-obsessed country airs its angst about rising prices that reached an all-time high Wednesday of nearly $3.85 per gallon of premium across the country.

Most of the blame has been falling on an ecology tax, aimed at encouraging alternatives to driving. The tax was one of the few achievements of the Greens party, which is serving in government for the first time.

Opposition parties screamed Wednesday for a lowering or elimination of the ecology tax, and polls show most Germans agree.

"Nobody can explain to commuters how they should get to work without a car," the pro-business Free Democrats wrote in a motion debated Wednesday in the lower house of parliament.

"The vogue word `ecology' conceals that the taxes only serve the aim of filling state coffers."

A tax-cut proposal also was to be raised today in the upper house of parliament by Baden-Wuerttemberg state, where DaimlerChrysler is based.

Gas prices are up more than 20 percent from the start of 1999, and taxes now make up nearly 70 percent of the gas price. The Free Democrats said taxpayers would spend $1.95 billion more this year because of the ecology tax.

The Germans--torn between their dual passions for cars and environmentalism--are finally crying enough. According to a survey by the Forsa polling firm for this week's Die Woche weekly, 61 percent of Germans want the government to eliminate the ecology tax.

Only 31 percent believe in keeping the tax, according to the poll of 1,001 people conducted May 31-June 2 that had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The Finance Ministry held firm in its position Wednesday. "There are in no way any plans" to eliminate the tax, said spokesman Joerg Mueller.

Instead, he continued to cite the government's line for rising oil prices: Market factors, the weak euro-dollar exchange rate and OPEC shortage strategies.

"Short-term reactions are not our thing," said Social Democrat parliament leader Wilhelm Schmidt, noting Social Democratic lawmakers are united behind Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Taxis in Stuttgart have raised their prices, bus companies are charging more for class trips, and locksmiths are upping the cost of driving to let in locked-out Germans, according to the mass-circulation Bild newspaper.

The gas increase is even affecting pizza prices. Axel Fassbach, head of the Hallo Pizza! chain, said prices would be going up next month by 25 cents for small pizzas and 50 cents for large.

"We hope that the customers will understand, but we aren't sure," he said from the company's headquarters near Duesseldorf.

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), June 09, 2000