Socialists demand gas, electricity, district heating price cuts

Budapest, January 19 (MTI) – The opposition Socialist Party has demanded that the retail price of gas should be cut by 20 percent, while the prices of electricity and district heating should be reduced by 10 percent in the wake of shrinking global prices.

Bertalan Toth, the deputy group leader of the party, told a press conference that the profits from lower prices on the world market have so far been reaped by “oligarchs” associated with ruling Fidesz, and demanded that those benefits should go to ordinary residents.

Toth insisted that the price of crude oil had recently been more than halved, followed by global gas prices, and noted that analysts expected the trend to continue.

According to the Socialist initiative, the reductions should be applied from April, and for average amounts of household consumption. Controlled-price energy should not be used “to heat the swimming pool or the sauna”, he said.

The opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) said that the drop in global market prices of oil and gas should allow a reduction of a “spectacular” rate of up to 30 percent in domestic electricity and district heating prices in the footsteps of the government’s decreed utility fee cuts. Csaba Molnar, deputy leader of DK, told a press conference that the government’s scheme to reduce household bills was “a lie” and its effects on the public were minimal. The government at the same time has “destroyed” public utility service providers and destroyed tens of thousands of jobs, he said.

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Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters