Half a year after the announcement of the 200-euro energy price flat rate for students and technical school students, the money will be transferred from this Friday for the first affected. The German Press Agency learned this from the Federal Ministry of Education and the Digital Ministry in Saxony-Anhalt. "The first applicants will soon have the one-time payment in their account," said Federal Minister of education Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP) of the dpa.
A test phase of the corresponding application platform on the Internet with universities and technical colleges in several federal states has been successful. "The test phase has been technically successful," said Saxony-Anhalt's Digital Minister Lydia Hüskens (FDP). Some 12 800 applicants had received their decisions granting the grant. This Friday, the federal government will instruct the energy price lump sum.
Since Saxony-Anhalt was in charge of setting up the digital Bafög, the federal and state governments had also entrusted the state with the technical implementation of the application platform for the energy price lump sum. Since last week, students and students of several educational institutions have been able to apply for the money as part of a test.
Application in three minutes
"The pilot phase shows that the common application platform works smoothly and that the one-off payment can be applied for quickly and easily," said Stark-Watzinger. According to the information, the average effort to apply for the 200 euros was about three minutes. Both politicians assume that, as planned, the application platform will be open to all about 3.5 million affected people from next Wednesday. They are usually informed about the details of registration and application by their educational institutions.
Anyone who was enrolled at a university on 1 December 2022 or who was in a technical college at that time is entitled to the money. The prerequisite is a domicile or "habitual residence" in Germany on this date. At technical schools, for example, educators, technicians or business economists are trained. Part-time students, participants in a dual study program, foreign students and those who are currently taking a semester off should also benefit from the payment. The energy price lump sum should neither be taxed nor offset against any social benefits.
The special payment had already been agreed by the traffic light coalition last September. However, the practical implementation proved difficult and took over half a year. A quick transfer of the 200 euros was slowed down, among other things, by the fact that the account data of all affected students and technical students were not centrally available.
The federal and state governments repeatedly came into conflict in the attempt to build an application platform on which those affected can identify themselves safely and unambiguously and on which personal and account data available at the educational institutions are brought together at the same time. It was about data protection, responsibilities and technical details.
Student representatives and the opposition in the Bundestag had criticized the slow procedure. Recently, there was also criticism that all those affected must create a user account with the federal government, a so-called BundID account, in order to clearly identify themselves when applying. In the meantime, it has been clarified that this does not necessarily require the online function of the identity card or an "Elster certificate", as used for the online tax return, but that a simple BundID account with user name and password can also be created.