While electricity prices have again jumped by almost 10% on average at the start of the month, and gas prices threaten to rise again next July, the energy check distribution campaign, which is due to begin in April to 5.6 million beneficiaries identified, raises questions.
A million of them might not get it.
For which motive ?
In the show C à vous, this Monday evening on France 5, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire mentioned “technical reasons”.
The system, which makes it possible to identify rights holders, is based on the crossing of two files: the last known income declaration (this year, it will therefore be that of 2022, since the income for 2023 has not yet been declared), as well as the housing tax.
However, the latter was removed last year for main residences.
As a result, the administration is no longer able to rely on a valid file to identify the beneficiaries of the energy check.
Between 2022 and 2023, up to one million households will have been able to meet the criteria allowing them to benefit from the system for the first time, according to initial estimates.
And another million were also able to get out.
“Consumer associations have done well to identify the problem”
“The consumer associations did well to identify the problem,” explained Bruno Le Maire on France 5. “And we resolved it.
» How does he plan to go about ensuring that these million new beneficiaries still have access to the system?
“It’s true that things were strangely messy,” we admit at Bercy, which has just taken over the supervision of energy, as part of the latest reshuffle.
“We have to put everything back in order.
It will be done in two stages.
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First, the Services and Payment Agency (ASP) will use information from 2022 to send a first wave of checks.
For all those who believe they meet the conditions, but who have not received a check, “there will be a claims system”, detailed the Minister of the Economy.
“There will be no losers.”
His office provides some additional information: “Indeed, for all those who have not received the check by the end of May, a website will be created to allow them to come forward, to assert their rights.
» Enough to nevertheless complicate the procedures.
And probably delay receipt of the check by several months for many households.
No refund requested for ineligible people
As a reminder, this state boost was launched in 2018 to help the lowest-income households pay their energy bills.
Calculated based on tax income, the amount, paid once each year, can vary between 48 and 277 euros.
A single person with 900 euros of monthly income will receive 48 euros.
For a couple with two children and 20,000 euros of income, it will be 76 euros.
As part of the price shield, it benefited at the end of 2021 from a first extension, of between 100 and 200 euros
and extended to twelve million households (the lowest 40%).
A second extension was granted at the end of the following year, for an amount reduced to 100 euros and 5.8 million households (the lowest 20%).
“The end of the housing tax is not new, we have been talking about it for four years,” protests Jean-Yves Le Mano, president of the consumer association CLCV (Consumption, Housing and living environment).
And there, it looks like the state services are discovering the problem.
This shows great contempt for all people in fuel poverty, who struggle every month to pay their gas or electricity bills.
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This big hiccup will, however, have an unexpected good side: the other million households who, because they no longer meet the eligibility criteria, should not have received the check in 2024, will have the pleasant surprise of receiving it when even in their mailbox.
Bercy specifies in this respect that no reimbursement will be requested from them.
The additional cost has already been estimated: “Probably around 100 million additional euros, for an overall energy check budget of 900 million euros per year.
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