Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) had previously questioned the gas surcharge. Esken's co-leader Lars Klingbeil also saw the gas levy as "politically on shaky ground" and expected that its fate would be decided next week.

The federal government initially stuck to the gas levy despite the nationalization of the Uniper Group. It is to be paid by private households and companies from October to support energy companies that are now having to buy more expensively in other markets because of the Russian gas outage. However, the federal government is still examining whether the levy after Uniper's nationalization is constitutionally permissible at all. Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) had expressed doubts here.

Esken emphasized in the "Report from Berlin" that "more state control" must obviously be exercised again on the electricity and energy market because services of general interest are at stake there. "Energy supply is the primary duty of the state. We cannot leave that to the market alone," she said. Since the market "is no longer working at all at the moment, government intervention is of course necessary," emphasized Esken.