Minister gives hope for energy flat rate - what students can already do

According to Federal Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger, the long-awaited payment of the 200 euro energy price lump sum is getting closer. "Now we're going to the home straight," said the FDP politician to the German Press Agency.

"As a pioneer, our partner Saxony-Anhalt will quickly clear the final legal hurdles in order to get started with the joint application platform." The federal government is ready. Preparations are also well advanced in other federal states.

Since Saxony-Anhalt was in charge of setting up the digital BAföG, the state was also entrusted with the technical implementation of the application platform for the energy price flat rate.

The traffic light coalition had already agreed on the 200-euro special payment for students and technical students in September. A law was finally passed in mid-December. But the up to 3.5 million people affected have not seen any money to this day.

The project and the coordination between the federal and state governments are difficult because there is no central office that has all the data and account details of all students and technical students. The federal and state governments are now trying to bring this data together on the joint website so that the money can be applied for centrally there.

"There has never been a payment to around 3.5 million people in 16 federal states at a wide variety of training facilities," said Stark-Watzinger. According to reports, the first payments should still take place in winter, as intended. Those affected will probably receive an access code plus pin from their training center in order to log on to the online portal and submit an application.

The portal will probably be available under "Einmalzahlen200.de", as can be seen from a draft federal-state agreement that "The Pioneer" first reported on.

According to Stark-Watzinger, the students and technical students should then be able to identify themselves completely digitally without having to appear anywhere in person to apply for the service. According to your information, this should happen via the “BundID” user account, which those affected could create now.

"Kick-off Politics" is WELT's daily news podcast. The most important topic analyzed by WELT editors and the dates of the day. Subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, among others, or directly via RSS feed.