Less than a month ago, the Freedom Movement party (Gibanje Svoboda) assured people that they did not have to worry about the new system of charging network fees, but today, they are trying to paint themselves as the “saviours” with the measures they have taken. Meanwhile, people have been pointing out the consequences of the overhaul of the network charging system for two years – where has the Freedom Movement been so far?
On the 18th of October, the Freedom Movement claimed on its website that “there is no need to worry.” According to them, people would not pay higher electricity bills because of the new changes, but now we are reading that the party’s chairman, Robert Golob, is “outraged” by the new billing system. Who is the crazy one here?
The new system of reforming network charges is a topic that has been talked about for the last two years – ever since the news of the adoption of the new act on the methodology for charging network charges for electricity operators by the Energy Agency on the 25th of November 2022. The new system has been the subject of debate for almost two years, and many businesspeople, among others, have repeatedly warned about the consequences of the high costs.
“There is no need to worry,” they claimed
However, the ruling coalition has apparently not paid much attention to this, as it seems to have been too busy with all the scandals the Slovenian public has witnessed in the last two years. However, until a month ago, the ruling party assured us that any concern was superfluous. On their website, they wrote: “No, this fear [that higher bills are coming] is superfluous. The energy network charge will be significantly lower on an annual basis than it was under the current billing system, but it is true that the power network charge will be slightly higher, as tariffs are set to better reflect the load on the network. Nevertheless, for the vast majority of households, the new annualised network charge will, in fact, be more favourable. The same is true for smaller business customers.”
Trying to paint themselves as the “saviours” in a problem of their own making
Today, after two years of debate, a good week after the new regime came into force and a month after the promise that “there is no need to worry,” we could read headlines in the mainstream media about how Robert Golob, the chairman of the Freedom Movement party and Prime Minister, is outraged and that the other coalition parties are shocked, too. “After the meeting of the coalition partners, the President of the Social Democrats party (Socialni demokrati – SD) and Minister of the Economy Matjaž Han, as well as the Left party (Levica) Coordinator and Minister of Culture Asta Vrečko, gave the assessment that the new system of charging the network charges for electricity needs different solutions. This must happen as soon as possible, they argued,” the media outlet Žurnal24 reported.
After numerous warnings and promises that there was no cause for concern, the government has now taken “several measures to mitigate high electricity bills during the winter season,” they wrote on the social network X. They wrote that “the government will not allow people’s electricity bills to go up by 30 percent,” which is particularly ironic given that they are the ones who have put people in this position.
Janša was right
All this government spin confirms the words of the leader of the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS), Janez Janša. He was commenting on the (belated) government measure to freeze the new network charging, as the new system has been repeatedly criticised. When asked in an interview on Radio Ognjišče whether he thought the three coalition parties even knew what they were putting into procedure at the National Assembly and what they were withdrawing, Janša replied: “I think that oftentimes, they don’t know what they are doing, or rather, I think that happens too often.” He then recalled the purchase of what was supposed to be the new court building on Litijska Street in Ljubljana – which was supposedly something they decided on twice, and then they admitted that they didn’t know what it was all about.
Janša also said: “There have been thousands of public warnings about the new system of charging network charges, especially from the business community. […] And now, the panic has set in, and what the government is doing now is putting out the fire after it had already started blazing, even though there were countless warnings before that pyromaniacs were walking around with matches.”
T. B.
