LINZ. “This development will be disastrous if countermeasures are not taken in the next few days,” says Doris Hummer, President of the Upper Austrian Chamber of Commerce. The actual tenfold increase in the price of electricity within a year goes to the livelihood of many. And even if the share of energy costs is low, the profit is gone with this development, says Hummer.
The Upper Austrian Chamber of Commerce does not want to wait for an EU solution with a reorganization of the electricity market, but calls for a national solution.
Hummer demands an Austria-wide electricity price regulation analogous to the regulation from the years before the liberalization of the electricity market 20 years ago. This should only be a temporary solution until the markets have calmed down again.
The previous system of the electricity market (merit order principle) had basically worked well. But now there is a war scenario. She expects that a national regulation will get a two-thirds majority in the National Council and that electricity and gas prices will soon be decoupled at EU level. Hummer also calls for a reduction in value added tax on energy from 20 to ten percent and refers to Germany, which is already reducing value added tax on gas from 19 to seven percent.
If prices continue to rise, this would set in motion a massive price spiral that would have a negative impact on growth. That would not only result in a reduction in production, but ultimately also in social upheavals, says Hummer.
Source: Nachrichten
