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Ursula Von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, announced this Wednesday, September 14 a battery of measures to counter the energy crisis. In particular, it proposes tackling the electricity market and the “superprofits” companies.
“At this time, benefits must be shared and redirected to those who need it most.” Ursula Von der Leyen spoke this Wednesday, September 14 during her “state of the union speech“. The President of the European Commission has presented a new plan to counter the energy crisis which is paralyzing the European Union. The main measure concerns in particular superprofits, that is to say the profits of companies boosted by exceptional circumstances , here the war in Ukraine.
“Hear me out, in our social market economy, making a profit is normal, it’s a good thing”, explains the president. “But right now, it’s not normal to make windfall record profits, profiting from war and on the backs of consumers”. This is why she proposes to cap “income from companies that produce low-cost electricity”. “Our proposal also takes into account producers of electricity from fossil fuels, which must make a crisis contribution”, she adds. This proposal would allow the European Union to collect no less than 140 million euros for “cushion the shock”.
This plan would also tend to reduce the price of gasoline. “We have not gotten out of our dependence on oil. Worse still, fossil fuels have even been massively subsidized. It was a bad choice (…). We are still paying the price today.”