On Tuesday, Italy’s political parties urged Premier Mario Draghi to act fast on the energy squeeze that has Italian households and businesses facing potentially crippling power bills.
The centre-left Democratic Party (PD) asked the government to recoup taxes on energy firms’ extra profits from soaring gas and electrical power bills amid the Ukraine war, sources said.
Senate Whip Simona Malpezzi and Lower House Whip Debora Serracchiani slammed the “firms that are refusing to pay the tax on extra profits”, amid the huge energy squeeze and gas blackmail by Moscow.
The two PD officials said the firms were “putting at risk the economic and social resilience of the country’s society,” sources said.
For this reason, they said, the government must intervene “as soon as possible with all the instruments at its disposal to recover what is due from the firms.” Rightwing League party leader Matteo Salvini called for the urgent reopening of parliament to place a cap on energy bills, emulating French President Emmanuel Macron.
“This is another war, and the workers risk dying with closed firms,” he said, saying “this is Lega’s proposal” and accusing PD leader and ex-premier Enrico Letta of “keeping silent on this for days.”
Letta responded by saying “an intervention of energy bills can no longer be put off.” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said “we must act together and with urgency” against record energy price hikes. She said the European Union had reached its target of 80% for gas stocks.
Meanwhile the northern Italian head of industrial employers’ group Confindustria warned against the consequences of the energy squeeze. They said the extra costs of the energy emergency amount to some 40 billion euro and would have a massive effect on the country’s economy.
“The impact is devastating with the risk of de-industrialization and a threat to national security,” the Confindustria northern branch heads warned.
The Italian government is studying more moves to help households and businesses cope with spiralling energy hikes amid a Russian gas squeeze and as political parties clamour for rapid action. The measures are being considered as gas and electricity prices in Italy continue to rise and Mario Draghi’s government is also redoubling its efforts to secure an EU-wide gas price cap, sources said.
Amid the crisis, the European Commission said EU energy ministers would meet on September 9 to discuss action.
An EC spokesman said on Tuesday that the emergency measures to address the energy market price crisis would see the light of day “in the next few weeks” He said he could not rule out there being measures before the extraordinary summit on the energy crisis on September 9, sources said.
“Member States have strong competences on the subject and therefore we must sound out all the positions,” he said, adding that members would have to wait until the start of next year for structural changes to the electricity market.
Meanwhile plans are afoot to decouple the electricity and gas markets.
Italy’s average electrical power price will fall to 612.36 euro per MWh Wednesday, from 740 euro Monday, the energy market manager GME said Tuesday. The hourly maximum will be 759.99 euro against 867.28. The minimum will be 538.9, against 688.24 on Monday.
Gas prices also fell in Amsterdam. Gas dropped 2.37% to 279 euro for shipments on September 22. For the Italian market, GME indicated a reference price of 278.745 euro per MWh, ranging from a minimum of 273.99 to a maximum of 288.999 euro.
