site.btaEmployers Want Electricity Price Hike Postponed Again, Plan Protests

Employers Want Electricity Price Hike Postponed Again, Plan Protests

Sofia, July 27 (BTA) - Employers on Monday demanded the planned
electricity hike to be postponed by another five months after
the initial one-month delay, and said they will stage nationwide
 protests on Wednesday. They insisted that electricity prices
should not rise until January 1, 2016.

The corporate community cannot and will not pay the high cost
resulting from the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission's
decision to increase the public obligation surcharge included in
 the price of electricity, employers said during a joint news
conference of the Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association
(BICA), the Bulgarian Industrial Association (BIA), the
Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) and the
Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria
(KRIB).

KRIB Executive Director Evgenii Ivanov said the fact that no
electricity price changes have been agreed between employers and
 the government suggests that there was not enough time to
complete the process. The cure-all is a liberal electricity
market, which will become a fact in January 2016 anyway, Ivanov
said.

In Bulgaria, industrial users are made to foot the bill for
electricity, speakers complained. In Europe, the price of
electricity for household users is four times as high as that
for industrial users, and in Germany it is even six times as
high, they said, calling for a further relaxation of the pricing
 conditions for businesses. They said they cannot accept what
will become the second-highest public obligation surcharge after
 that in Denmark.

Konstantin Stamenov, Management Board Chairman at the Bulgarian
Federation of Industrial Energy Consumers, said the main
problems arise from the preferential treatment of some
electricity producers. Stamenov said some renewable energy power
 plants operate illegally, while the electricity co-generated by
 heating plants is not necessarily as highly efficient as it is
purported to be.

The pricing and market models should be changed, BIA's Kamen
Kolev said. According to him, electricity pricing should not be
based on production costs, because such a model does not
encourage electricity producers to minimize their costs -
instead, they look for ways to justify their expenses and factor
 them into the price paid by electricity users.

In order to make themselves heard, employers and trade unions
will stage nationwide protests on Wednesday. Demonstrations have
 so far been planned in 29 towns involving over 1,000
businesses.

Meanwhile, energy workers from Pernik (28 km west of Sofia)
blocked the road to the capital for 15 minutes, protesting
against Energy Act amendments which have passed conclusively in
the National Assembly. Local coal miners and employees of the
Toplofikatsia Pernik heating company formed a human chain across
 the road. The workers disapprove that 5 per cent of electricity
 sale proceeds flow into an Electricity System Security Fund,
which is used to offset losses of the National Electricity
Company. This costs Toplofikatsia Pernik 1.5 million leva in
lost annual revenues, which is equivalent to four months of
wages for its employees, said Georgi Troharov of the
Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria.

This is the second demonstration by Pernik energy workers in a
week.