site.btaCaretaker Cabinet Adopts Programme for Compensating Electricity Costs of Non-Household End Consumers

At its regular sitting, the caretaker cabinet adopted a draft decision to amend the Programme for Compensation Electricity Costs of Non-Household End Consumers for the period from July 1 to December 31, 2024, caretaker Energy Minister Vladimir Malinov told a news briefing here on Wednesday. The Programme now includes the operators of electricity transmission and distribution networks.

The cabinet's decision broadens the circle of potential beneficiaries, Malinov explained. The mechanism envisages full compensation of electricity costs exceeding BGN 180 to the real expenditures that all companies, businesses, and operators of electricity transmission and distribution networks will have from July 1 to the end of 2024.

"The other good news is that, in implementation of a Council of Ministers decision, we concluded the notification procedure with the European Commission (EC) regarding the admissibility of this state aid, because this programme constitutes state aid," Malinov also said. He noted that that there is an EC opinion that the measure applied is similar to previous such measures applied in 2021 and in other years. The measure is necessary for the market at the moment, which means that the actual implementation of the programme will start as early as on Thursday, the Minister explained. The Electricity System Security Fund will start paying compensation to businesses in order to protect the competitiveness of Bulgarian industry and economy.

Commenting on the high electricity prices, Malinov said that the problem is regional and does not affect Bulgaria only. In the last few months, extremely high electricity prices have been observed in Bulgaria's neighbouring markets - Greece, Romania, even Hungary, the Minister said. In his words, it is for this reason that within the previous week he had a meeting with his counterparts from Greece and Romania. "We plan to refer the problem and its impact on the economies in the region to the European Commission, seeking a common protection mechanism for businesses in the three countries," Malinov said. He clarified that the first measure is precisely this compensatory mechanism.