Good to see you awake, Union. Now see it through.

There are weeks in which more moves in politics than in a year. This was one of them. Within a few days nine state ministers from the CDU and CSU, the twelve members of the Union’s agriculture working group, the economic council, the small business and economic wing, two state premiers, the chairman of the Bundestag parliamentary group and the CDU/CSU group in the European Parliament have set themselves against new burdens.^{[1][10][11][6][19]} Not against one. Against four at once.

I say this as someone affected by it, and I say it plainly nonetheless: that is right. And it is remarkable, because it goes against their own government. The Union deserves recognition for it – out loud, not in a subordinate clause.

Just as plainly, the second sentence belongs here: nothing is thereby decided. A letter is not a vote. A reservation is not a no. And anyone who cancels revenue has to say where they will save instead.

Front 1: the sugar tax

The starting point is a contradiction within the Union itself. In February 2026 the CDU federal party conference in Stuttgart rejected a motion to introduce a sugar tax; the motion came from Schleswig-Holstein.^[2] Later the Union nevertheless agreed with the SPD on such a levy. It is precisely this gap between the party’s resolutions and the government’s actions that the opponents are now using.

On 11 October 2026 nine ministers from Union-led agriculture and consumer protection departments turned against the tax in a joint letter to Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz. The letter also went to Nina Warken and to group chairman Thorsten Frei. Their argument, in substance: a sugar tax is steering by the state, while the coalition agreement relies on voluntary action, incentives and personal responsibility.^[1] Bavaria’s agriculture minister Michaela Kaniber had already demanded in early October that it be dropped entirely.^[1]

Three days later the cabinet delivered all the same – though not, as was often reported, a bill, but drafting assistance for the parliamentary groups.^[4][5] That is no detail: the actual decision falls in the Bundestag, and sitting there are the members who have committed themselves. On substance the version provides for 26 cents per litre at 5 to under 8 grams of sugar per 100 millilitres and 32 cents from 8 grams, starting on 1 July 2027. Expected are 690 million euros in 2027 and 925 million euros in 2028.^[3][4] Excluded are, among others, drinks with sweeteners, pure juices, unsweetened spritzers, alcohol-free beer and wine as well as milk, oat and rice drinks.^[3] An exemption for small producers is planned, but the EU would first have to permit it.^[3]

The watered-down version is the result of the pressure. The first draft was higher and was stopped. So anyone saying the resistance achieved nothing is mistaken.

Front 2: the plastic tax

Here the resistance is most successful. The draft provides for a tax of 550 euros per tonne of plastic in packaging from July 2027; recycled material is to be exempt from July 2028. Budgeted are around 805 million euros in the first year and about 1.5 billion euros a year from 2028.^[6][8]

With what is currently on the table, one has to say: in this form it is certainly not something we can agree to.

That is what Thorsten Frei, chairman of the CDU/CSU Bundestag group, said on television in mid-October 2026. Within the group there were “considerable reservations”; costs and benefits did not currently match up for administration and business.^[6] According to media reports at least 24 Union members of parliament have stated in writing that they will not agree.^[7] That figure rests on parliamentary group circles and is not independently confirmed. It would, however, be decisive, because the coalition has a majority of only twelve votes of its own in the Bundestag.^[6]

The CDU’s economic council rejected the levy back in July 2026: duplicate structures, additional bureaucracy, no clear ecological steering function. It calls for incentives for recycled material instead of a new levy.^[8] That is the strongest argument on the substance that I have read in this whole debate, and it comes from within the Union itself.

Front 3: alcohol and sparkling wine duty

The duties on spirits, sparkling wine, intermediate products and alcopops are to rise by 20 per cent on 1 January 2027; beer and wine remain excluded. The sparkling wine duty rate would go from 136 to 163 euros per hectolitre, the spirits rate from 13.03 to 15.64 euros per litre of pure alcohol. Around 455 million euros a year are expected.^[12][13][20] Contrary to the way it is often presented, this is not a tax act of its own but part of the 2027 budget accompanying act.^[12]

The state will not be able to plug budget holes with champagne corks.

The sentence comes from Gitta Connemann, chair of the small business and economic wing.^[14] Johannes Steiniger, the Union group’s spokesman on agriculture and food, calls the higher sparkling wine duty a false signal and wants to prevent it in parliament.^[15] Hesse’s state premier Boris Rhein has rejected tax increases in the Bundesrat.^[16] An attempt by Rhineland-Palatinate to strike the increases out of the budget accompanying act in the Bundesrat did not, however, find a majority.^[12] That shows the limit of this front: on the budget accompanying act the Bundesrat can delay, not prevent.

Front 4: the EU packaging regulation

The EU packaging regulation has applied since 12 August 2026. The main point of criticism is not the environmental requirement but the administration: anyone selling into other EU states has to register there and name an authorised representative – with no de minimis threshold.^[19] For a medium-sized company with customers in ten countries that means ten registrations, ten authorised representatives, ten fee notices, for the same pallet of goods.

Here the CDU/CSU group in the European Parliament is leading. Its chairs Niclas Herbst and Angelika Niebler wrote to the responsible commissioner in August 2026 saying that implementation must not fragment the internal market again.^[19] In early October 2026 the European Parliament’s environment committee voted with 74 votes in favour and none against for a temporary suspension of the authorised representative obligation.^[17][18]

That is a success, and it is smaller than it sounds. The committee drew the circle considerably more narrowly than the Commission’s proposal: relief is to go only to companies established in the EU that have fewer than 50 employees and less than ten million euros of annual turnover. The plenary and the Council still have to agree, and in the Council there are reservations.^[17][18] None of it is law in force so far.

The table names only publicly documented positions. It deliberately contains no assessment of how strong each front is.

What deserves recognition in this

Three things one ought to name, even if there is otherwise little cause for praise.

First: these members of parliament and ministers are setting themselves against their own government and against their own chancellor. That is uncomfortable, and it is exactly what a member of parliament is elected for. Anyone who puts statements on the record and signs letters commits themselves and can be measured against it. That is worth more than any press release.

Second: the reasoning is right on the substance. On the plastic tax the economic council does not say “too expensive” but: duplicate structures without an ecological steering effect.^[8] Frei does not say “no taxes” but: costs and benefits do not match.^[6] On the EU regulation the objection is not to recycling but to ten registrations for the same pallet.^[19] These are arguments, not slogans.

Third: it works. The first draft of the sugar tax was stopped and has been watered down.^[3][4] The plastic tax is on hold for now.^[6][7] In the EU environment committee 74 of 74 voted for relief.^[17] Anyone claiming that nothing can be moved in this country anyway is refuted here.

Why it is only beginning now

And that is why the second part has to be said just as loudly. Four points on which it will show whether it was meant seriously.

The sugar tax is not off the table, it is in the Bundestag. On 14 October the cabinet adopted drafting assistance; the Union and the SPD are to implement it in parliament.^[4][5] Anyone who wants to prevent the tax has to do it there, not in a letter. And the exemption for drinks with sweeteners has to survive the procedure – otherwise the levy will in the end hit precisely the products that meet the objective.^[3]

On the plastic tax Frei said the draft was not something they could agree to “in this form”. That is a no to this paper, not a no to a levy.^[6] As long as around 1.5 billion euros from 2028 are budgeted, a revised version will come.^[6][8]

On alcohol and sparkling wine duty the position is the most difficult: an initiative in the Bundesrat has already failed.^[12] Anyone wanting to achieve something here needs majorities in the Bundestag, not indignation.

And on the EU packaging regulation the relief applies only after the plenary and the Council – with a threshold that many medium-sized companies do not fall below at all.^[17][18] Anyone who thinks this is settled will be getting fee notices from six countries next year.

And after that: save

Now the part that gets uncomfortable, for the Union too. Anyone blocking 2.9 billion euros of planned revenue has not thereby saved a single euro. They have opened a gap.^[3][6][12] This gap is why the measures keep coming back: it is not health policy that drives them, it is the budget.

The honest order is therefore: save first, then collect – and if proper savings are made, do not collect at all. Every tax that is prevented belongs answered with a spending decision, in the same procedure, with a figure and a date. Otherwise the resistance is only a postponement to the next budget year.

This is not a sideshow but the actual task. A state that reaches into the till because it does not want to work on its own spending has no revenue problem. It has a priorities problem. And no sugar tax solves that.

Hence my call to the Union, in this order: hold the line, vote in the Bundestag the way you wrote in your letters – and then save, save, save. The first part brings headlines. The second decides whether the country is better placed in five years.

This piece is a commentary and is marked as opinion. The figures and attributions in it are documented; the assessment is the author’s. The figures on the burden from the three taxes are set out in full in our commentary “Klingbeils indirekte Steuern”.

Andreas W. HerbCEO MBG GroupPaderborn, 14 October 2026