Electricity bill subsidies will remain the basic tool in the government’s policy seeking to offer households and businesses protection against the energy crisis’ exorbitant electricity prices, it has been decided at a Brussels meeting.

DG Energy and DG Comp authorities, in talks with Greek government officials, did not permit wholesale market measures for electricity purchases by suppliers at levels below the System Marginal Price, a lower cost that would then have been passed on to consumers.

Brussels officials had expressed hesitation from earlier on for a two-pronged solution entailing wholesale and retail market intervention as the European Commission wanted to avoid, at all costs, any impact on the target model, Europe’s unified electricity market.

As a result, energy minister Kostas Skrekas and the ministry’s secretary-general Alexandra Sdoukou arrived in Brussels yesterday with a simpler alternative plan that was shaped to be more compatible with the European Commission’s sensitivities.