The federal government on Sunday unveiled a new multi-billion-euro plan to help households deal with rising prices and said it intended windfall profits from energy companies to fund the aid.

German businesses and consumers are feeling the pain of sky-high energy prices as Europe’s largest economy tries to break free from dependence on Russian supplies after Moscow invaded Ukraine.

Rapid measures to prepare for the coming cold season will ensure that Germany “gets through this winter,” said Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the presentation of the 65 billion euro package.

The latest agreement, which has brought total relief of almost 100 billion euros since the beginning of the Ukraine war, was negotiated on Sunday night by the German three-party coalition of Scholz Social Democrats, the Greens and the liberal FDP.

Headlines include lump sum payments to millions of vulnerable retirees and a plan to cash in on energy companies’ windfall profits.

The government’s latest aid package came two days after Russian energy giant Gazprom announced it would not resume gas supplies via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline as planned on Saturday after a three-day maintenance.

The government made “timely decisions” to avoid a winter crisis, Scholz said, including filling gas storage facilities and restarting coal-fired power plants.

But preventive measures, including efforts to reduce consumption, have done little to break the sharp rise in household bills.

The latest announcement follows two previous aid packages totaling €30 billion, which included a cut in fuel taxes and a popular heavily subsidized public transport ticket.

But with many of these measures expiring at the end of August and consumer prices soaring, the government was under pressure to provide fresh support.

Inflation rose again in August to 7.9 percent after falling for two consecutive months thanks to earlier government support measures.

Rising energy prices are expected to push inflation in Germany to around 10 percent by the end of the year, the highest rate in decades.

However, Scholz said not everyone is suffering from high consumer prices.

Some energy companies that may not use gas to generate electricity “just take advantage of the fact that the high price of gas drives the price of electricity and make a lot of money off of it,” he said.

“We have therefore decided to change the market order in such a way that these random profits no longer occur or are skimmed off.”

The reduction in windfall profits creates “financial leeway that should be used specifically to relieve consumers in Europe,” according to the government in its policy paper.

At the press conference, Finance Minister Christian Lindner estimated that the step could bring relief in the “double-digit billions”.

The government said it will push for the move to be implemented across the European Union before enacting the measure itself.

Brussels said on Monday it would prepare “emergency” measures to reform the electricity market and bring prices under control.

Scholz said he expected the EU to deal with the issue “quickly”, adding that it was “very clear that we need quick changes in this area”.

Repeating his mantra that Germans will never go through the energy crisis alone, the Chancellor unveiled a range of measures including a one-off €300 payment to millions of pensioners to help them meet soaring electricity bills.

The government also wants to appeal to students with a lower one-off payment of 200 euros and a flat-rate heating fee for housing benefit recipients.

Berlin has also provided 1.5 billion euros for work on a successor to the much sought-after nine-euro monthly ticket for local and regional transport.

The overall aid package should be financed without taking on further debt, said Lindner.

“These measures are included in the government’s existing budget plans,” which cover 2022 and 2023, he said, with the rest covered by the windfall energy gains measures.