Berlin, 7 May. The soaring cost of Doener kebab worries the Germans and puts Chancellor Olaf Scholz in difficulty. The spit-roasted meat dish – imported into Germany by Turkish immigrants, who adapted it to local tastes, and whose sales amount to around 7 billion euros a year – now costs up to 10 euros in some cities of the country, against 4 euros just two years ago.
Scholz is so used to being asked about the subject during his public appearances that his government has decided to use social media to explain that if prices have risen this is partly due to the increase in other costs, from rent to those of energy. “It’s quite surprising that everywhere I go, especially from young people, I get asked whether there shouldn’t be a cap on the price of Doeners,” Scholz said.
The far-left party Die Linke was the latest to take an interest in the topic, asking, with a proposal that it wants to present in parliament, for the introduction of a maximum price ceiling for the popular dish.
The party recommends a maximum price of 4.9 euros and 2.90 euros for young people, in particular those from low-income families, for whom – it claims – the plate of grilled meat, cut into thin slices and seasoned with vegetables finely chopped, garlic or chilli sauce and wrapped in a focaccia – it is a basic ingredient of the daily diet. And he suggests that every family receives daily kebab vouchers. Based on estimates of 1.3 billion Doeners consumed in the country every year – 400,000 per day in Berlin alone – this subsidy program would cost 4 billion euros per year, Die Linke calculated.
Even the Greens, traditionally not inclined to recommend the consumption of meat, have raised the case in parliament: “For young people – declared MP Hanna Steinmueller – right now it is an issue as important as where they will move to when they leave they will go home. I know it’s not an everyday issue for many people here,” she told her fellow parliamentarians, “but I think as representatives of voters we are obliged to highlight these different perspectives.”
Scholz – approached at an event by a young German Turk who said: “I pay 8 euros… talk to Putin, I want to pay 4 euros” – ruled out the idea of a price cap as it was “not feasible” in an economy of free market. He instead praised the “good work of the European Central Bank” in reducing inflation. But on social media there was no shortage of those who called for Angela Merkel’s return, claiming that when she was in the chancellery “the Doener was under control”.
