€58.4m subsidy on electricity since September

The subsidy for the cost of electricity consumption from September 1, 2022 to January 31, 2023 amounted to €58.4 million, the finance ministry said on Thursday.

In an announcement, the ministry said that it had spent €400m so far as part of targeted interventions to mitigate the effects of the energy crisis and inflationary pressures.

The amount of €58.4m, according to the ministry, concerns the measure of the direct subsidy of the cost of electricity consumption for households and small and medium-sized enterprises for the period in question. This is an ongoing measure, the ministry said.

The subsidy benefits 1.35 million accounts. These include 1.09 million households, of which 41,819 were vulnerable domestic consumers, 213,611 commercial consumers, 41,807 industrial consumers, and 8,402 water-pumping facilities in the agricultural sector.

The highest subsidy goes to vulnerable household consumers (Tariff 08), and is scaled between 50 per cent to 85 per cent for the remainder of households (Tariffs 01, 02, 46 and 56B), as well as for commercial and industrial consumers (codes 10 and 20 respectively).

This measure is in parallel with those to reduce the consumption tax on motor fuels (gasoline and diesel) and heating oil, by €0.07 per litre (€0.0833 including VAT) and €0.0537 (€0.0639 including VAT) respectively, which applies since March 8 2022 and will be valid until the end of February 2023 after the second extension decided by the council of ministers last September. The total estimated cost of this amounts to €75m.