“The next five to ten winters will be difficult. The development of the situation is very difficult throughout Europe. Some sectors are facing serious difficulties with these high energy prices,” he noted, during an intervention within the port handling company ICO Terminals, where he was following a half-day internship on Monday at the invitation of VOKA, a Flemish employers’ organization.
The boss of VOKA, Hans Maertens, had not said anything else a few minutes earlier, saying he saw “heavy clouds over the Flemish economy” and “black snow” over many companies.
“We are monitoring the situation closely, but we must be clear: the next few months will be difficult, the next winters will be difficult. We will have to get out of it. Hoping for the best while preparing for the worst. And if the situation proves ultimately better than expected, it will still have been beneficial to be prepared,” added the Prime Minister.
For Alexander De Croo, Belgium can face the crisis, “if we support each other in these difficult times. We can do it, with the self-confidence and the decisiveness that are necessary”.
The MR, for its part, affirmed that it would put on the agenda the maintenance of more than two nuclear reactors. “If we already know that the next five to ten winters will be difficult, it is urgent to keep more than two nuclear reactors. Reinforcing its dependence on gas is a culpable blindness”, tweeted the president of the party, Georges- Louis Bouchez.
The Federal Minister for the Economy, Pierre-Yves Dermagne (PS), for his part signed the royal decree on Monday which extends the extended social tariff for gas and electricity until the end of the year. “Along with automatic indexation, this is the most important measure to compensate for the loss of purchasing power of people with low incomes,” he said.
However, “the great uncertainty and price shocks that lie ahead force us to do more.” “The government will have to take other ambitious measures to help the population to face this unprecedented energy crisis”, he urged.
In opposition, the PTB once once more called for a special tax on energy multinationals for their excess profits generated by the crisis as well as a price freeze.
