Gas and electricity price brake: Government wants to ban unjustified energy price increases
Created: 12/03/2022 12:39 p.m
A gas meter (icon image).
© IMAGO/Rene Traut
The brake on gas and electricity prices is coming.
As part of the relief, the traffic light is now also planning a ban on rising energy prices.
Berlin – The government plans to put a stop to unjustified tariff increases in the planned gas and electricity price brakes.
Price increases should be banned until the end of 2023 - unless the supplier can prove "that the increase is objectively justified," according to the draft price brakes that have been introduced in the Bundestag.
A justification could result from “market-based price and cost developments”.
An "abusive use" of the regulations to relieve end customers is to be prevented.
A spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Economics said on Saturday that the abuse control serves to prevent unjustified price increases - i.e. those that cannot be justified by rising procurement costs.
"That means not every price increase is automatically illegal, but those that are abusive and unjustified."
Traffic light ban on gas and electricity price brakes: Energy price increases are not "automatically illegal"
The FDP energy expert Michael Kruse told the
Bild
newspaper (Saturday): "We want to prevent free-rider effects that encourage utility companies to pay higher tariffs." SPD specialist politician Nina Scheer said: "As a result, abuse must be ruled out."
The gas and electricity price brake planned by the traffic light coalition is intended to cushion the consequences of the sharp rise in prices for households and companies.
A certain amount of consumption should be subsidized by the state, and current, high market prices apply.
The brakes should take effect from March 2023, but retrospective relief is planned for January and February.
The 300 euros high energy price flat rate also ends up in the accounts of pensioners.
Read here when they will have the money.
(dpa)
