After the government's announcement on Friday of a guaranteed electricity rate in 2023 for craftsmen, several professional organizations called for an extension to SMEs on Saturday.
“We
would have liked all SMEs to be able to benefit from this capped tariff
”, regrets Jean-Eudes du Mesnil, Secretary General of the Confederation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (CPME).
The risk is to see a distortion of competition between large VSEs and small SMEs which carry out the same activity, according to him.
The system provides that approximately 600,000 very small businesses (TPE) which consume a lot of electricity, because they heat or cool a lot, and cannot subscribe to the regulated household tariff, do not pay more than 280 euros per megawatt hour in average this year.
“
This is excellent news
, rejoiced Jean-Eudes du Mesnil.
We can always consider that the tariff remains too high, but this gives real visibility to these companies
”.
The government wants suppliers, such as EDF, Engie and TotalEnergies, to apply this tariff to very small companies (fewer than ten employees) which had signed contracts at the worst time, when energy prices were historically high, between the July 1 and December 31, 2022.
Read also“It is not tenable”: faced with the explosion in electricity prices, bakers are fighting to survive
Thierry Marx challenges Bruno Le Maire
President of the main employers' union for the hotel and catering industry, Umih, chef Thierry Marx for his part affirmed that "
this progress does not take into account all of our establishments
".
“
We ask that all our restaurants and all our hotels be able to benefit from this regulated rate
,” he wrote in an open letter to the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire published Friday evening on the website of the daily Le Parisien.
The chef still “
welcomes
” the guaranteed price announced on Friday.
SMEs already have access to aid to cope with the recent surge in energy prices, such as the electricity shock absorber, but these measures only cover part of the additional cost.