WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE CZECH - news journal UPDATE - (en) Czech, CAS: AGAINST FURTHER ENERGY PRICE RISE (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The government and capitalists profiting from the energy trade are going

to tighten our belts again. They attack our dignity again, and they are
going to impoverish us again, even though we can afford less and less
with our hard-earned money and more and more of us are experiencing
first-hand what "working poverty" is. As social anarchists, we reject
the odd arguments of the government and the energy companies - we know
very well that the real reason is to increase profits and dividends for
shareholders, and last but not least, the arrogance of the government
and their contempt for working people, whose labor they live in luxury
as parasites. what to do First of all, we must not allow ourselves to be
told that there is nothing we can do about it. We can protest and take
to the streets, force the government to act in our favor and not in
favor of the energy companies and their own.

As expected, the media reports that energy prices will rise again from
next year. Higher prices on the wholesale exchanges and, in particular,
the expected announcement of a fee increase for the regulated component
of electricity and gas are contributing to this. In particular, there
are other risks with gas, the fulfillment of which could drive prices
even higher for end customers. In total, household invoices could thus
increase by several hundred crowns per month.

We can expect the price of gas to rise due to its higher price on the
stock exchange. i.e. by the speculation of capitalists who use the
tension in the Middle East and the war between Ukraine and Russia as a
reason to raise prices. Gas suppliers can therefore proceed with earlier
price increases. Currently, the wholesale price is 41 euros (1,032 CZK)
per MWh. For comparison, we can add that during the heating season in
February this year, the price of gas was 22 euros (CZK 554).

Individual European states have already reacted to the price of gas,
with sufficient advance notice. In Europe, reservoirs are filled to an
average of 85 percent, which is above the five-year average. So it can
be seen that there is more than enough gas, and increasing its price is
again just an effort to maximize profits for a narrow group of owners
and shareholders of energy companies. This is how capitalism works!

What does the price of electricity and gas actually consist of? For gas
and electricity, it is divided into a regulated and an unregulated part.
Regulated belongs to the state and the government or authority can
intervene in it. This will probably happen in the near future. The
cabinet of the right-wing scoundrel Petr Fiala (ODS) is discussing the
Ministry of Industry's proposal to increase the fee for the activity of
the energy regulator, i.e. the Energy Regulatory Office.

The proposal assumes that the fee for electricity would rise from CZK
2.39 per MWh to CZK 4. The average household would pay an extra 19.32
crowns per year. For gas, this is an increase from 1.34 crowns per MWh
to 2.20 crowns. In the annual bill, this would be an increase of tens of
crowns. And what is the reason for the fee adjustment? According to the
Ministry of Industry, it is necessary to cover the costs of the
activities of the regulatory authority. The government probably needs
more money to support the war and armaments, but also higher wages for
its officials and for itself.

However, a higher price may affect the entire regulated component. Last
year, the Energy Regulatory Office proposed an increase in the regulated
part of electricity by 65.7 percent and gas by 38.8 percent. This is why
people paid about 3,200 crowns more for electricity this year and about
125 crowns for gas. A similar increase can be expected this year as well.

Energy experts point out that the network is under more strain every
year and it is necessary to pay more for the infrastructure. "The costs
of distribution networks are increasing. Gas consumption is falling, but
networks are getting older. Costs are rising and more needs to be taken
from the fee. So, in common sense, for years the money collected from
the people was not used to repair infrastructure, but to pay politicians
and bureaucrats, and now they would rip us off when it is in a
disastrous state. A good householder can tell right away. As anarchists,
we constantly claim that the state is a useless, unnecessary and
counterproductive institution that goes against the people and their
interests.

In connection with the war in Ukraine and due to rising energy prices,
the state also reached out to the market. Fial's government has started
buying strategic infrastructure, which includes reservoirs and
pipelines. But the biggest controversy was caused by the purchase of the
company Net4Gas, which takes care of gas transit from Russia. The
company lost 1.7 billion crowns last year, while the year before that it
reported a profit of 6.2 billion crowns. Russian gas used to flow to
Germany through the company's pipeline. However, after the termination
of the contracts with Gazprom, this path has dried up. Therefore, there
are currently no orders, while gas pipelines still have to be paid for.
People will most likely take this away on their invoices. An ordinary
household in the Czech Republic can already pay a few hundred crowns
more in gas fees next year, just to cover the fixed costs of the idle
pipes owned by Net4Gas. When the tubes don't pay for transit, the
workers do. At the same time, his prospect that transit will once again
be profitable is now, as can be seen, extremely uncertain, precisely
thanks to the government's policy. While the Ukrainian government itself
takes Russian gas, the Czech government, as a true vassal of the USA
(and also of American energy companies), stopped the Russian gas at the
expense of the majority of the company, without any interest in whether
the poorly paid Czech workers would have to pay for it. This is what the
arrogance of the powerful towards the controlled looks like in practice.
That is why we are anarchists! If you don't like it, maybe you're one of
us too?!

https://anarchiste.org/proti-dalsimu-zdrazovani-energii/
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