BCCI requested that the scheme for compensating businesses due to high electricity prices be maintained beyond the New Year

The Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) supports the preservation of the scheme for compensating high electricity prices for non-household consumers until December 31, 2022 and its continuation next year. This is recorded in the opinion of the Court on the Draft Law implementing Council Regulation (EU) 2022/1854 of 6 October 2022 on emergency intervention to tackle high energy prices and a proposal for a scheme to compensate electricity prices for non-residential end customers. The opinion is addressed to Hristo Alexiev, Acting Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Policies and Chairman of the Crisis Staff for Energy, and to Rosen Hristov, Acting Minister of Energy, the BCCI reported.

At the very beginning of the introduction of the compensation scheme, Bulgaria adopted the principle of support for all non-domestic consumers - without introducing differentiation in the form of vulnerability coefficients according to support needs or only in relation to enterprises in strategic industries determined by the state (applied in Germany and Austria as practices), pointed out by the Court.

As part of a discussion held with other employers' organizations, a proposal was discussed to transform the compensation scheme from the beginning of next year, by distinguishing 2 groups of non-domestic consumers - those connected to the distribution networks of low and medium voltage, and the group of large consumers of electricity (connected to the high voltage transmission network).

The position of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in case the approach to single out such groups is adopted, is aimed at preserving the single threshold at which the compensatory mechanism is triggered, but in the case of large consumers, support should be directed not to all, but only to vulnerable enterprises from high electricity prices. Therefore, those large enterprises that have passed the costs on to their output prices and made excess profits should not be compensated.

This approach corresponds to the European principle "think small first" and at the same time allows the compensatory mechanism to be administered with a view to a limited number of enterprises in the group of large consumers.

BCCI fully supports the proposals to regulate incentives for enterprises that have invested in increasing their energy efficiency and RES for their own consumption.

With regard to subsidized electricity prices for domestic consumers, the Court supports the proposal to introduce a certain threshold above which consumed electricity will be paid at prices at which non-domestic consumers pay.