German electricity lobby group bemoans tax burden
Date: 07-Mar-02
Country: GERMANY
"Some 80 percent of the reduction for electricity customers are taken away by state taxes," VDEW President Guenther Marquis told a news briefing in Berlin.
Germany's electricity prices for household customers fell by roughly a fifth last year to around 15 euro cents per kilowatt hour (kWh).
Of that, tax on energy consumption - the so-called eco-tax - and state-backed surcharges on electricity produced from renewable energy and combined heat and power generation, account for around 1.8 euro cents/kWh, marquis said.
Germany fully opened its electricity market to competition two years ago, while France's power sector is only 30-percent open, he said, adding that VDEW supported the EU Commission's call for full EU-wide electricity market liberalisation by 2005.
State and government chiefs from EU member states are due to meet in Barcelona next week to renew talks on competition in the energy sector.
Marquis said that though German power firms were making capacity cuts in Germany's over-supplied market, they would still have to make massive investments in the coming years in replacing old power plants if the country was to meet its ambitious climate protection goals.
Germany targets a 25-percent cut in carbon dioxide emissions, which are linked to climate change, on 1990 levels by 2005.
It introduced the eco-tax and laws to support renewable energy and CHP power production to help it achieve that goal.