Energy minister rules out gas rise
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DESPITE fears that gas prices were set to rise by 4.9%, energy minister Eric Besson has said that there will be no increase for the public. Main supplier, GDF-Suez, had been in talks with
the government over a possible rise in the price for consumers but Mr Besson has now ruled this out and said that the rise would apply to businesses only. Any increase would have been a
severe blow for households as it would have meant gas prices had risen by 20% since April last year. GDF-Suez said it “regretted” Mr Besson’s decision and that it was considering legal
action to protect its commercial rights as the legal criteria for energy price rises had been met and increases were covered by its contract with the government. It had tried to persuade Mr
Besson to agree the increase by boosting the number of people who would be eligible for a social exemption to the price rise. It proposed that the pre sent exempt i on that applied to
400,000 consumers be extended to four million. A spokesman for consumer rights body CLCV, Thierry Sanchez, said any price rise was unacceptable. “They have found new gas supplies and its
price has been dropping on the markets for three years.” The Commission de Régulation de l’Energie is also looking at a new way of calculating gas prices to account for falling world prices.