Despite their occasional reduction, energy prices are high and are expected to remain at these levels. Therefore, ensuring a predictable and competitive energy cost for energy-intensive businesses in the face of continuous fluctuations is a condition for their survival and facilitates a successful transition to a lower carbon footprint, the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV) pointed out.
As it noted, it is a condition to avoid the contraction of productive activities and the loss of jobs in Greece (as in the rest of the EU). At the same time, it underlined that at a time when geopolitical developments in the Middle East are causing new concerns about upheavals in energy prices internationally, many EU member states are already taking more active measures to ensure competitive and predictable energy prices in order to limit, in the medium-term space, the existential uncertainties in their energy-intensive businesses.
In this framework, the SEV Energy Committee, headed by the chairman of the Board of Directors, Dimitris Papalexopoulos, in the meeting he had on Monday with the Minister of Environment and Energy, Theodore Skylakakis, in the presence of the Deputy Minister of Environment and Energy, Alexandra Sdoukou, highlighted 3 fields of interventions that must be implemented as a high priority, in order to form a predictable and competitive energy cost in the short-medium term. The criticality of these issues is repeatedly highlighted by the SEV Energy Committee.
These are the following:
- Containment of energy costs
- Improving the functioning of the energy market
- A government initiative to remove the “transit fee” for natural gas from Bulgaria.