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RTÉ News
10 hours ago
- General
- RTÉ News
Middle Age rents live on in German social housing legacy
When German pensioner Angelika Stibi got the keys to her new home in the southern region of Bavaria this year, a huge financial weight was lifted from her shoulders. Angelika has to pay just 88 cents a year for her apartment in the social housing complex known as the Fuggerei, where rents have not gone up since the Middle Ages. Founded in 1521 by the wealthy businessman Jakob Fugger and believed to be the oldest such project in the world, the Fuggerei in the city of Augsburg provides living space for 150 residents facing financial hardship. Consisting of several rows of yellow terraced buildings with green shutters and sloping red roofs, the complex still resembles a medieval village. "I had a truly wonderful life until I was 55," said Angelika, a mother of two in her 60s from Augsburg. After she was diagnosed with cancer, "everything went from bad to worse" and she was left with no other option but to apply for social housing, she said. Waiting lists are long for apartments in the walled enclave not far from Augsburg city centre, with most applicants having to wait "between two and six or seven years", according to resident social worker Doris Herzog. "It all depends on the apartment you want. The ones on the ground floor are very popular," Herzog said. Applicants must be able to prove that they are Augsburg residents, Catholic and suffering from financial hardship. Relative of Mozart Martha Jesse has been living at the Fuggerei for 17 years after finding herself with monthly pension payments of just €400, despite having worked for 45 years. "Living elsewhere would have been almost impossible," said the 77-year-old, whose apartment is filled with religious symbols. The Fuggerei was heavily damaged in World War II but has since been rebuilt in its original style. Renowned composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's great-grandfather, the mason Franz Mozart, was once a resident and visitors can still see a stone plaque bearing his name. For Andreas Tervooren, a 49-year-old night security guard who has lived at the Fuggerei since 2017, the complex is "like a town within a town" or "the Asterix village in the comic books". The meagre rents at the Fuggerei are all the more remarkable given its location an hour's drive from Munich, the most expensive city in Germany to live in and one of the most expensive in Europe. Rents have also risen sharply in many other German cities in recent years, leading to a wave of protests. But not at the Fuggerei, whose founders stipulated that the rent should never be raised. Jakob Fugger (1459-1525), also known as Jakob the Rich, was a merchant and financier from a wealthy family known for its ties to European emperors and the Habsburg family. Fugger set up several foundations to help the people of Augsburg, and they continue to fund the upkeep of the Fuggerei to this day. The annual rent in the Fuggerei was one Rhenish gulden, about the weekly wage of a craftsman at the time - equivalent to 88 cents in today's money. Although some descendants of the Fugger family are still involved in the management of the foundations, they no longer contribute any money. "We are financed mainly through income from forestry holdings, and we also have a small tourism business," said Daniel Hobohm, administrator of the Fugger foundations. The Fuggerei attracts a steady stream of visitors, and the foundations also receive rental income from other properties. In return for their lodgings, residents of the Fuggerei must fulfil just one condition - every day, they must recite a prayer for the donors and their families.
Telegraph
21-03-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Britain's largest power generator slashes renewables investment over Trump energy fears
Britain's largest power generator is to slash investment in green energy amid uncertainty generated by Donald Trump's cutbacks to net zero policies. RWE, which produces about 15pc of the UK's power, warned its profits would be lower than expected this year and will cut planned investments by €10bn (£8.4bn) over the next five years. The German company said it was currently 'impossible to predict' what changes in US energy policy would mean for the global expansion of low carbon energy. RWE is the world's second largest developer of offshore wind farms. About half of RWE's installed renewable capacity is based in the United States, where Mr Trump has taken aim at offshore wind technology, an area where the company is exposed through early-stage projects. RWE said it expected its 2025 net income to be between €1.3bn and €1.8bn, down from €2.3bn last year. Markus Krebber, the chief executive of RWE, said: 'Given greater uncertainties, it is all the more important that we are even more cautious.' The move underlines the impact of rising geopolitical risks, supply chain constraints and lower returns across the industry. Denmark's Orsted has decided to cut its 2030 investment program by 25pc, as it grapples with rising costs and supply chain issues. BP has also sold off its wind assets and announced it will refocus largely on oil and gas. RWE's UK gas-fired power stations have a capacity of about seven gigawatts – enough for 7m to 8m homes – with long-term plans to convert them to run on green hydrogen or fit them with carbon capture and storage (CCS). However, investment in these plants may now face delays. This year RWE announced plans to retrofit its Staythorpe Power Station near Newark, Nottinghamshire, with CCS technology, enabling the capture of up to 3.7m tonnes of CO2 annually, equivalent to removing 800,000 petrol cars from the road. The scheme would run alongside three other CCS initiatives located at its existing power stations in Pembroke and Great Yarmouth, in addition to a potential new-build generating plant in Stallingbrough, also equipped with carbon capture technology. RWE still has a long way to go on decarbonisation, with coal the source of about 30pc of all the power it generated worldwide last year. It has seven power stations in the Rhenish mining region to the west of Cologne, with a capacity of about six gigawatts – enough for several million homes – that burn the fuel on a huge scale. These were responsible for much of the 75m tonnes of CO2 emitted by RWE last year. The impact of RWE's investment slowdown on UK decarbonisation projects remains uncertain but the company is also under pressure from some investors to spend more on share buybacks. Brokerage Morningstar and investor Enkraft, a long-time critic of RWE's strategy, both urged the group to expand the share buyback programme as a way to raise value. 'RWE lacks the credibility to generate the targeted returns with its investments. When this trust is restored, investors will also make capital available to RWE,' Enkraft said.
