"In his explanation of the coronavirus emergency aid for micro-enterprises and self-employed individuals, Scholz said: "It is very important to me that we are providing a grant, not a loan. This means that nothing needs to be repaid.""
"To which Altmaier added: "We will not leave anyone behind!" More than five and a half years later, Marion Alemeier now feels quite abandoned. "There was a lot of hype, but none of the promises were kept," she told DW. "Many colleagues and friends warned me at the time, 'Be careful, you'll have to pay this back.' And I replied, 'No, that's not possible, they can't do that.'""
"Later, however, it was announced that the subsidy had only been awarded based on an estimate of what was needed to bridge the "liquidity gap" caused by the pandemic. The reason for this was that the Federal Economy Ministry estimated that of the approximately 13 billion that the federal and state governments had paid in emergency pandemic aid for the months of March to June 2020, 5 billion had been overpaid. As a result, tens of thousands of requests for repayment were sent out including to Marion Alemeier. The hairdresser was asked to repay 7,000. She took legal action against the official decision and won,"
On March 23, 2020, German ministers promised emergency aid for micro-enterprises and the self-employed, describing payments as non-repayable grants and pledging to leave no one behind. Many recipients, including hairdresser Marion Alemeier, received urgent funds to cover lost income during lockdown. Later government calculations concluded that aid payments were estimated and that roughly 5 billion euros of about 13 billion paid from March to June 2020 had been overpaid. Tens of thousands of recipients subsequently received repayment demands. Some recipients, including Alemeier, challenged repayment orders in court and secured legal victories.
Read at www.dw.com
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