Planned Electricity price increase attracts critisism

Planned increases in electicity rates have attracted critisism from the Spanish Consumers Association, who have described it as being inacceptable under the current economic climate. They have also demanded that the Ministry of Industry engages in "serious discussions" to arrive at a more suitable agreement.

The association reminded the government that the proposed 3% increase announced yesterday would be added to the January price increase and the VAT increase in July as well as the additional cost that all consumers have had to pay to install the obligatory ICP power control switch in their homes.

A spokesman for theAssociation released the following statement "With this latest increase electricity prices will once again rise far above the current IPC rate", adding that the problem is even greater when taking into account that salaries only rose an average of 0.4% in the second quarter of the year, whereas the IPC (consumer price index) rose 1.6%.

He continued, "And even greater still if you consider the high level of unemployment and the fact that pensions have been frozen".

"Whilst consumers' incomes do not increase even at a quarter of the rate of the IPC" the statement went on, "basic utilities like electricity go up year after year at a far greater rate than the price indicator, continually decreasing families' purchasing power."

The Association requested that the Minsistry engaged in "serious and committed dialogue" with the electricity industry to reach an agreement over the tarif deficit, in order to avoid "families seeing their purchasing power further reduced in a time of deep recession and high employment."