Gas consuming industrial enterprises already struggling amid Greece’s deep and ongoing recession must not be burdened with additional costs related to the gas market’s liberalization, EVIKEN, the Association of Industrial Energy Consumers, has noted in an announcement.

As part of the bailout deal’s gas market reforms, the government has increased the natural gas distribution fee for the industrial sector by 500 percent, from 0.8 euros per MWh to 4 euros per MWh, to compensate regional gas suppliers (EPA) for the premature termination of exclusive supply deals in their respective regions of wider Athens, Thessaloniki, and Thessalia, in the mid-northeast.

In its announcement, EVIKEN attacked the expectations of EPA companies to have their investments, which they estimate at over 284 million euros, compensated by the sharp hike in the natural gas distribution fee.

The association noted the EPA demands amount to blackmail against the state and described the tolerance shown by the country’s lenders as peculiar.

“It is inconceivable for the state to accept such blackmail. The strange tolerance being displayed by the technical teams of the country’s lenders, who are supposedly aiming for the normalization of market distortions and an entirely free natural gas market, is also unfathomable,” the EVIKEN statement pointed out. “We expect direct intervention from related ministries and authorities, otherwise thousands of jobs will be at stake.”