To protest once morest energy prices, the president of the PTB, Raoul Hedebouw, calls for rotating mobilizations within the framework of the “Angry Fridays”. These actions will target energy rates and the federal government,”accomplice of the energy multinationals”.
The restricted Council of Ministers (kern) succeeded in an agreement on Friday on new aid for Belgians. Support of 135 euros for gas and 61 euros for electricity will be put in place for the months of November and December. A fuel oil check of 300 euros is also provided.
“Rawettes” in the eyes of the president of the PTB, Raoul Hedebouw who denounces the superprofits of multinationals: “Engie-Electrabel has a cost price for its electricity production of 25 to 35 € per megawatt hour and resells it to us, Belgian workers, at 200 – 300 € per MWh, it’s still crazy, it’s ten times profit margin”.
Deal secret
Raoul Hedebouw has also repeatedly accused the government of having concluded a secret deal with Engie-Electrabel during the summer. Alexander De Croo and Tinne Van der Straeten, Minister of Energy, would have accepted, according to him, the demand formulated by the management of Engie to have the bill for nuclear waste paid by the government and not to impose any serious taxation. of its excess profits.
Price freeze
Raoul Hedebouw would have preferred a price freeze at €70/MWh, which would be equivalent to the cost price and ‘a certain margin’, but the federal government has taken another direction. “People have a right to be angry,” he says.
The president of the PTB hopes that this anger will translate into concrete actions: he calls for mobilization during “Angry Fridayse”. These events will take place from September 30, two cities at a time. One will take place in Flanders and the other in Brussels or Wallonia. “to give a national signal across the country”.
Spectacular actions
Concretely, on the ground, “it will be presences in squares, presences in neighborhoods, symbolic actions, spectacular actions, I leave total creativity”explains Raoul Hedebouw.
“A situation of war”
A call that made Thomas Dermine, Federal Secretary of State for Recovery and Strategic Investments (PS), jump: “We are at war, we must have the honesty to say so. Energy is used in an armed conflict by Russia as a weapon of war. We are in a phase where we must have a truthful discourse and say that “We have to stick together. There are two ways of doing politics in this country. There are people in the government who are fighting step by step to take measures for the population. (…) There are another way of doing politics is to stir up hatred, anger and calls for creativity to make demonstrations. Beyond the sympathy that one can have for Hedebouw, it’s a circus That’s not how you change people’s lives. That’s not how you bring to households in a war situation.”
