The SPÖ has once more called for an immediate price cap on electricity throughout Austria and called for the state to play a more active role in supply security. “The prices kill people,” said Chairwoman Pamela Rendi-Wagner on Thursday at a media event. Instead of doing something regarding it, the federal government is practicing mock discussions and undertaking “feelgood trips to Israel or Lebanon,” emphasized Lower Austria’s SPÖ leader Franz Schnabl.
Rendi-Wagner referred to the example of France, where the state is already intervening in the market to regulate electricity prices. “As a result, France has lower inflation than Austria,” she said. For Austria, she basically has two models in mind: “Either you put a price cap on when setting the electricity price or directly on the electricity bill from the end consumer.” In the second case, a certain degree of social accuracy might be achieved through staggered tariffs. The reference value should be an average electricity consumption of a household of 3,500 kilowatt hours (kWh) per year. “Everything that a household consumes is not capped,” says Rendi-Wagner.
She supports the call of her party colleague Michael Ludwig for a price summit. On Tuesday, the Mayor of Vienna pointed out that the federal government, the federal states, the parliamentary parties, social partners, representatives of the European Union and experts are jointly discussing an anti-inflation package. In this forum, details of the implementation of the maximum electricity price should also be clarified, as Rendi-Wagner explained.
“If one provincial governor in Austria following another is now asking the federal government to finally take measures following months, then that is nothing more than a call for help,” said the SPÖ chairwoman. “It’s nice that many ÖVP provincial governors have now actually taken up our proposal for an electricity price cap and are also calling for it. Now these ÖVP provincial governors only have to convince their own ÖVP Federal Chancellor of this idea.” As with the Corona crisis management, the government acts “helplessly, despondently, haphazardly” and “is always too late”.
Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) should also get out of the sleeping car when it comes to the long-term question of energy security. Elementary supply areas such as air, water and energy “must not be left to private companies”, stated Rendi-Wagner and called for an active participation policy via the Austrian Investment Company (ÖBAG). “We need an active state, an active policy,” said Schnabl, referring to the “strategic mandate” in the ÖBAG law. “You should be more than just a management company,” said Rendi-Wagner. When asked whether ÖBAG should participate directly in liquid gas terminals, she replied: “For example.”
“To this day there is no emergency plan for the real emergency, should a gas stop come,” said the SPÖ leader, who also recalled her visit to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz two months ago in Berlin. The topic of LNG had already been discussed there, and in Berlin she had called for Austria to participate in liquid gas terminals. “The state has to take responsibility here. It takes courage and an active state that makes public investments to protect people,” said Rendi-Wagner.
