The government is lagging behind in introducing mechanisms for assessing, identifying and monitoring energy poor households in Bulgaria. This is stated in an opinion of the Economic and Social Council, one of the recommendations is to add an inflation index to the formula for determining the official poverty line in order to overcome the abandonment of the income criterion when determining the status of households, informs the Bulgarian National Radio.
The Council indicates that 1,800,000 people or about 30% of the population of Bulgaria fall into the group of energy poor households, who do not have access to basic energy services for adequate heating, cooling, lighting and energy provision for household appliances. Additionally, about 365,000 have the status of vulnerable customers. In Bulgaria, almost 21% of people were unable to keep their homes warm enough, with our country ranking first in the EU in this indicator.
In addition to writing a strategy for addressing energy poverty, the document proposes discussing a mechanism to determine the level of compensation in a liberalized market, with compensation being granted differentiated according to income and limited to electricity bills for the household's main residence.
According to ESC, the state's efforts should be directed towards achieving interconnection of the electricity system of Bulgaria and Southeastern Europe with those of Central and Northern Europe.
In July last year, the average monthly price of electricity in Bulgaria, Romania and Greece was over 110% higher than that in Central European countries such as Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic.
"As a result, Bulgarian business and "The Bulgarian state, through the compensations it provides, pays an unbearably high price for electricity, and this has an extremely adverse impact on economic competitiveness and the standard of living," ESC said in the adopted statement.