Three politicians from Germany’s The Greens party have demanded price controls for ice cream.
The three Berlin State MPs, Benedikt Lux, Tuba Bozkurt and Marianne Burkert-Eulitz, have sent a formal letter to Dehoga, the association of the German hotel and restaurant sector, suggesting that ice cream vendors offer at least one flavour at a reduced price of €0.50 to children from poverty-stricken families.
“We would be happy to discuss this in more detail with you in the near future and discuss whether this is a suitable proposal to make the summer even more enjoyable for everyone in our beautiful city,” the letter reads.
A Dehoga spokesman said the association was open to the idea. “I will discuss this issue with The Greens. The term ‘price control’ is rather unfortunate. But when it comes to disadvantaged children and young people, we can start a dialogue”, Dehoga manager Gerrit Buchhorn told local newspaper Berliner Zeitung on July 5.
Other commentators were less benign. Author and entrepreneur Rainer Zitelmann mused whether children would have to take their parents’ payslips to the ice cream store to get their “welfare scoop”.
“Green is another word for total economic dementia,” he added.
Investor Simon Betschinger called the proposal “a great Socialist idea” and suggested that members of The Greens party be required to work for free at ice cream shops so that owners could offer this low price.
Others noted parallels with an old quote by former Greens party environment minister Jürgen Trittin who famously promised Germans in 2004 that the country’s “green energy transition” would not cost the average household more than “a scoop of ice cream” or €0.50 per month.
Since then, German energy prices have rocketed with consumers currently paying the second-highest prices in all of Europe.
Author Kolja Barghoorn quipped: “This closes the circle … Maybe it’s not the energy transition that will be as cheap as a scoop of ice cream but a scoop of ice cream that will be as expensive as the energy transition.”
According to a survey on July 7 commissioned by press agency dpa, about two-thirds of Germans think ice cream prices are too high.
On average, a scoop of the dessert currently costs €1.81 in Germany, according to a survey of 176 ice cream shops by website coupons.de – almost 12 per cent more than in 2023.
Ice cream can be had much cheaper at discount supermarkets such as at Lidl, though, which currently offered five bars for €2.22.
