In her Christmas speech last Saturday, S leader Magdalena Andersson launched a proposal for an initiative in the finance committee about an emergency for electricity and gas bills that will make it possible for electricity customers who receive extra high bills to postpone them.
Now the Finance Committee has taken a position and supports the Social Democrats’ idea to such an extent that a meeting must be held as soon as possible with the Ministry of Economy.
– We from the four cooperation parties in the finance committee would like to look into it further, says Edward Riedl (M), chairman of the finance committee, about the attitude of the three government parties and the Sweden Democrats.
Hard pressed households
He says that the governing parties and SD understand that many households are now hard pressed by high electricity prices which, according to Riedl, are connected to previous S governments’ mismanagement of the electricity system.
– What we are doing now is that we continue to look at this issue in the committee during the Christmas break. The Ministry of Commerce can come back to the committee as soon as possible and tell them how they see the proposal that the Social Democrats have made or if there is anything else that can be done, says Riedl about the future.
The Social Democrats’ economic policy spokesperson, Mikael Damberg, welcomes the committee’s support for the S initiative.
– They say that they want more information from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and that they are not closing the door. It is still positive, he says.
Support in the north?
On the other hand, Damberg is critical of the fact that the governing parties and the SD reject the S and the Left Party’s respective initiatives that the Riksdag should call on the government to design an electricity subsidy for northern Sweden, that is, for customers in electricity areas 1 and 2.
But according to Edward Riedl and SD’s economic policy spokesperson Oscar Sjöstedt, the government is working on developing such support. According to them, an initiative from the Riksdag would make no difference.