The government has decided to implement a five-euro cap on fixed charges in electricity bills, energy minister Kostas Skrekas has told parliament.

It is the latest in a series of energy-crisis measures introduced by the government and comes after electricity suppliers opted to increase their fixed charges as a means of keeping their tariffs – the competitive aspect of electricity bills – as low as possible.

A new market mechanism’s revenues generated for the Energy Transition Fund, supporting the government’s electricity subsidies initiative, reached over 330 million euros in the first half of the month and could exceed 500 million euros by the end of the month, the minister told parliament. This sum nearly covers the monthly cost for subsidies.

The energy crisis, brought about by pandemic-induced market abnormalities, has been exacerbated by Russia’s war on Ukraine, which the minister described as “catastrophic, causing thousands of deaths, many of the victims being unarmed civilians, and beyond that, an enormous energy crisis that is feeding economic and inflationary crises, which we hope does not also lead to a food crisis.”