Electricity Prices Won't Rise Until the End of the Year, and for 1 January the PM Says: Let's Wait and See What the Companies Say

The price of electricity will stay the same until the end of the year, and the Government will fight to keep it unchanged after 1 January too, Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said, answering a reporter's question after opening the new school in Skopje's Chento neighbourhood. According to him, the Government currently has no plans to change the tariff blocks.

The guarantee, however, comes with a clear expiry date. "From 1 January, let's wait and see what the energy companies say, and then we'll see. I cannot prejudge the decision of the Regulatory Commission," Mickoski said. He added that ESM is not the only one asking for prices to be levelled, there is also the operator and the distributor, the private company EVN.

The key number is 65 euros per megawatt-hour. That's what the electricity state-owned ESM sells to universal supplier EVN Home currently costs, and the new offer is expected by the end of November. The PM says a lower price won't be offered, because "in these conditions on the exchanges today, even 65 is three times lower than what they pay in the neighbourhood and what citizens in Europe pay." On European exchanges, the price in mid-October exceeded 200 euros per megawatt-hour.

The procedure at the Energy Regulatory Commission has already started. MEMO did not request a correction, Elektrodistribucija had not yet finalised part of the calculation for buying energy to cover grid losses, and ESM's Energetika subsidiary, which supplies companies in the Zhelezara steelworks compound, asked for its service to go up by almost 53 percent. That request does not apply to household bills, but it shows that nobody in the system is asking for less.

SDSM reacted sharply and with name-calling, claiming the announcement means a price hike after New Year. "Electricity stays the same - until it goes up," reads their statement, in which they call the PM an "aramija", a bandit. The opposition points out that the minimum wage is 26,000 denars, while the consumer basket with rent for a flat is around 90,000 denars.

Set the insults aside and you are left with a question neither side answers: who actually sets the price? The PM says he can't prejudge the Regulatory Commission, and in the next breath lists the companies asking for more. The regulator is independent on paper, ESM is state-owned, and the guarantee is political. If bills go up in January, will anyone put their name to the decision, or will it remain "the Regulatory Commission's decision"?