How to keep subsidizing electricity?

The Special Common Utility Services Account is almost always running a deficit, but lately this has been creeping up toward €300 million, leaving the government in a bind: Will it directly fund the deficit or will it pass the bill on to electricity consumers?

The special fund allows the provision of cheap electricity to special “vulnerable” categories, such as people with special needs, the long-term unemployed, and low-income families with three or more children. It also allows residents of islands not connected to the mainland grid to pay the same rates for their power, which is produced by relatively expensive diesel units.

This latter provision has to have approval from the EU. But this approval expired in February 2019 and nothing has been done to renew it. Should the EU decide that these subsidies must be clawed back, electricity provider PPC would face a financial crisis.