Germany's persistently high energy costs have long weighed on households and businesses alike. On Thursday, the AfD parliamentary group brought three interconnected legislative proposals before the Bundestag, each targeting a different layer of Germany's energy taxation structure.
The three draft bills, covering energy and electricity tax reductions, a VAT cut on gas and heat, and the abolition of emissions trading laws, were introduced for their first reading and referred to the relevant parliamentary committees for further deliberation.
The first and most financially significant proposal is the Energie- und Stromsteuersenkungsgesetz (Drucksache 21/6332), a draft law calling for the uniform reduction of energy and electricity tax rates to the lowest level permitted under EU law. Unlike targeted or sector-specific relief measures, this bill would apply to all consumers equally, private households, small businesses, and large industrial operators alike.
The AfD projects that aligning these taxes with the EU minimum would deliver a combined annual relief of approximately 21 billion euros. The bulk of this, around 12.3 billion euros per year, would come from reducing the tax burden on motor fuels such as petrol and diesel, benefiting commuters, freight operators, and the transport sector broadly.
A further 6.2 billion euros in annual savings would result from lowering the electricity tax (Stromsteuer), which has historically sat well above the EU's minimum threshold and is widely cited as a key driver of Germany's comparatively high electricity prices. The remaining 2.5 billion euros would ease heating costs for households and commercial users as energy taxes on heating fuels are brought into line with EU minimums.
The AfD acknowledges that federal tax revenues would fall by a corresponding amount, with additional downstream losses in VAT receipts also anticipated. The party's position is that keeping energy taxes above the EU minimum serves no justifiable purpose and amounts to a structural transfer of billions of euros from consumers and businesses to the public purse each year.
The second proposal, the Gas- und Wärme-Umsatzsteuersenkungsgesetz (Drucksache 21/6333), addresses value-added tax. It calls for the VAT rate applied to gas and district heating to be permanently set at the reduced rate of 7%, down from the standard rate of 19 percent that currently applies.
The AfD estimates that permanently fixing the VAT rate at seven percent for gas and heat would reduce annual tax revenues by around nine billion euros. Of this, approximately 4.3 billion euros would be absorbed by Germany's federal states (Länder), with a further 350 million euros falling on municipalities (Gemeinden), reflecting how VAT revenues are distributed across the different tiers of government.
The party presents permanence as the defining feature of this proposal, distinguishing it from temporary relief packages that have repeatedly been introduced and then withdrawn.
The third proposal, the CO2-Preis-Abschaffungsgesetz (Drucksache 21/6334), is the most structurally far-reaching of the three. It calls for the complete and unconditional repeal of two pieces of legislation: the Treibhausgas-Emissionshandelsgesetz, which implements the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) in German law, and the Brennstoffemissionshandelsgesetz, Germany's national carbon pricing mechanism applied to heating and transport fuels.
The proposal does not seek to reform or replace these laws, it calls for their full abolition along with all subordinate regulations and statutory orders derived from them. The AfD's justification centres on economic competitiveness. The party contends that years of what it characterises as ideologically driven climate and energy policy have inflicted serious damage on Germany as an industrial location.
In the draft's reasoning, carbon pricing through emissions certificate trading under the EU ETS, combined with the domestic CO2 levy, has pushed energy costs for businesses and households to a level that is no longer competitive in an international context. The bill draws a direct line between these cost pressures and the ongoing deindustrialisation of Germany, arguing that businesses are increasingly unable to compete against manufacturers in countries where no equivalent carbon pricing applies.
By removing both the EU ETS implementation law and the national carbon pricing framework entirely, the AfD argues that Germany would take a decisive step toward restoring the competitiveness of its industrial base and countering the outflow of investment and production capacity that it associates with current energy policy.
The three bills drew immediate pushback from across the political spectrum during the Bundestag debate. CDU/CSU's Dr. Florian Dorn acknowledged Germany's structural competitiveness problems but noted the coalition had already acted, cutting electricity taxes for manufacturing to the EU minimum, benefiting 600,000 businesses representing nearly 30 percent of all jobs in Germany, alongside network fee reductions for private households.
The Greens' Michael Kellner calculated the AfD proposals would collectively cost 50 billion euros in lost tax revenues, equivalent to ten percent of the entire federal budget, and accused the party of anchoring Germany to fossil fuels at a time when renewables were gaining ground. The SPD's Michael Thews echoed the 50 billion euro figure and criticised the AfD for presenting no offsetting financing plan, describing it as a recurring pattern.
Die Linke's Doris Achelwilm argued the root cause of high consumer energy prices was not taxation but the market power of energy conglomerates, pointing to RWE dividend payments of nearly one billion euros as evidence that profits were flowing to shareholders rather than into grid and storage infrastructure.
Following the first reading on June 11, the energy and electricity tax bill and the gas VAT bill were referred to the Finance Committee (Finanzausschuss) as the lead committee. The emissions trading abolition bill was referred to the Committee on Environment, Climate Protection, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.
All three draft bills were formally lodged on June 9, 2026 under reference numbers 21/6332, 21/6333, and 21/6334 respectively, and will now undergo committee scrutiny, expert hearings, and further parliamentary debate.
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