The Consumers’ Association is pleased that attention is being paid to high energy costs. “It is a nice gesture and a quick band-aid. If you now want to do something about the high energy prices, you cannot avoid such a measure, but you help people with it at least.”
According to the union, it is better to help people structurally by insulating houses. The cabinet also announced on Tuesday that it will set aside 1.3 billion euros for the sustainability of homes and buildings, of which half a billion for a national insulation program.
Like the Consumers’ Association, professor of energy transition at Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen Martien Visser questions the effectiveness of the reduction. “This actually doesn’t do anything about energy poverty. The money doesn’t just go to the people who need it most. It’s more of a candy for everyone, while the real concern is with people with poorly insulated houses.”
Energiearmoede
from a study published yesterday Research agency TNO showed that 550,000 Dutch households live in so-called energy poverty. They have high energy bills, usually a poorly insulated house and a low income. They spend 13-20 percent of their income on energy, compared to 5 percent on average for all households.
Peter Mulder, researcher at TNO: “This tax relief is a plaster on the wound, but the wound is not healed with it. You can better tackle excessive energy bills by improving homes, by insulating.”
Discount for large companies
In addition to insulation, the Consumers’ Association also advocates a structural reduction in the energy tax for small consumers. Large consumers, i.e. large companies, pay relatively much less tax than households.
“That has to change,” says director Sandra Molenaar. “By increasing the burden on the biggest polluters, you encourage them to take saving measures.” The OECD, an organization of mainly rich countries, wrote this year that these energy tax cuts for large companies slow down the energy transition.
Electrification
The ratio between energy taxes paid by small and large companies has been improved by the House of Representatives. On Thursday, it was also decided to reduce the energy tax on electricity (ODE) for companies by 125 million euros.
This will make the tax relatively cheaper for small and medium-sized enterprises. Electricity will also become cheaper compared to gas, which should encourage SMEs to move away from gas.
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