Germany: EWA Complains Again Striking Discrimination Against Public Swimming Pools and Demands Improvement of the Law

After a majority in the German Bundestag agreed upon the bills “on the introduction of price brakes for grid-bound natural gas heat” and “on the introduction of an electricity price brake” in its session of 15 December 2022 – whereby two amendments of the CDU-CSU parliamentary group were not adopted – the European Waterpark Association (EWA) is once again clearly speaking out. In the amendments, it was once again clearly demanded that extended calculation methods (e.g. by changing the reference period) should be offered when calculating the relief quota if the previous year’s reference value does not reflect the real expected consumption due to Covid19-related closures, which is the case for public pools due to measures to combat the pandemic.

The Quality Association of European Leisure Pools and Spas EWA therefore calls on the German Federal Government to follow the proposal of the CDU-CSU parliamentary group for changing the reference period. “With a letter to the parliamentary group leaders of the German Bundestag and to Federal Minister Dr Robert Habeck, we have demanded an urgent amendment of the draft laws on the gas and electricity price brake passed by the Bundestag: The reference values for public pool operations and for companies economically dependent on them must not be measured according to the consumption of 2021, but must be determined according to the consumption values from 2019. Otherwise, this would be an unacceptable disadvantage for the companies already hard hit economically by the pandemic-related facility closures in 2021,” explains EWA Managing Director Dr Klaus Batz. (eap)