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Things that will change in Germany in February 2024
Meat
From February 1st, butchers and meat counters in supermarkets will be obliged to make the origin of meat visible to consumers through labelling at the counter. This applies to pork, sheep, goat and poultry meat. Prepackaged meat and sausage products are exempted from this. Information about the rearing of the animals (“raised in”) and their slaughter (“slaughtered in”) or “origin” is therefore mandatory. The EU member state or country must be specified.
The labelling of unpackaged meat must be done directly on the meat, through a notice or through other written or electronic offers such as small signs on the counter, information on food and drink menus or in the price list.
Social insurance portal
Around 550,000 employers use the health insurance companies’ “sv.net” portal to transmit their social insurance reports online. This portal will be shut down on February 29th. Since the requirements for data exchange are constantly increasing, according to the information technology service centre of the statutory health insurance, a successor software, “SV-Meldeportal”, is being launched. The “sv.net” portal can still be used without restrictions until then. However, employers are recommended to register on the new portal as soon as possible.
New regulations for medication co-payments
The co-payment for medicines is simplified. The additional payment now relates to the pack size. Up till now, consumers had to pay an additional payment of at least five euros for several small packages if there was no large pack available for the prescribed amount of medication. From February 1st, you only have to pay the additional payment once, even for several smaller packages.
Reduction in Feed-in tariffs for PV systems
Anyone with a photovoltaic system on their roof and cannot use all the electricity themselves can feed it into the grid and receive a certain amount in return. From February 1st, these feed-in tariffs will decrease in accordance with the Renewable Energy Sources Act.
Four-day week pilot project
50 companies in Germany will introduce reduced working hours on February 1, 2024. Working hours will be reduced to a four-day week, and workers will receive their full wage or salary. The project will last six months and will then be scientifically evaluated. The aim is to test whether a reduction in working hours is accompanied by an increase in productivity. |
