Renewable energy fee reform scrapped
Changes to the renewable energy fee will not go ahead after the biggest party in the coalition Reform refused to back the move. The reform was expected to generate approximately €60 million of additional income per year.
The reform planned to remove the renewable energy fee line from electricity bills and would see the state mitigate developers' business risk with money from CO2 funds. This would not have changed the average customer's bill, as electricity excise duty would have been raised.
SDE proposed the reorganization at the budget strategy talks last autumn.
Jevgeni Ossinovski (SDE), who initially put forward the idea, said less excise money could have been collected from industrial consumers. "This proposal would also allow domestic consumers to find a way to get energy more cheaply than they do today," he added.
The Ministry of Climate and the Ministry of Finance have not been keen on the plan since the beginning. Neither have wanted to discuss the changes.
On Monday, Minister for Climate Kristen Michal (Reform) said the reform will not take place.
"It was proposed during the budget negotiations, but it was not our proposal and we do not see it as necessary. Germany has essentially done the same thing and has gone into a pretty big deficit," he added.
Minister of Finance Mart Võrklaev (Reform) said he did not think the reform was viable from the start.
"When we put together the state budget strategy, I made it clear to the coalition partners that this revenue cannot be counted on," he said. "At the time, the Social Democrats and Eesti 200 insisted that this reform must come in this form and that it must be included in the national budget strategy."
Coalition politicians will discuss the issue, and the budget strategy more broadly, on Tuesday.
There is still €400 million missing from the budget that politicians need to find.
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Editor: Merili Nael, Helen Wright