“Eight euros for a doner!” one man yelled at German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Munich in a video posted to TikTok. “Talk to Putin! I want to pay four euros for a doner. Please!”
It’s become such an issue, that some politicians belonging to the far-left Die Linke, or the Left party, are calling for a “price brake” on the doner kebab.
“When young people demand: ‘Olaf, make the kebab cheaper,’ this is not an internet joke, but a serious call for help!” wrote Kathi Gebel, a member of the Left party’s executive committee, in a manifesto on the subject.
The state should set a maximum price of €4.90 per doner kebab, according to the paper; that would mean subsidizing each kebab to the tune of of €3, resulting in a €4 billion annual cost to the state based on an estimate that 1.3 billion doner kebabs are consumed in Germany each year.
The calls for a price brake have become so frequent, that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz felt obliged to respond on TikTok.
“It’s quite remarkable that I’m asked everywhere, mainly by young people, whether there shouldn’t also be a price brake for kebabs,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said earlier this year, referring to an already existing price cap on rents in some regions. “There won’t be a price brake. We live in a market economy, ” he added. “But inflation in Germany is already falling and will continue to do so.”