Tytti Tuppurainen (SDP) arrived for a meeting of the Social Democratic Parliamentary Group in Helsinki on 7 September 2023. Tuppurainen has voiced her surprise by the government’s lack of action in response to the recent spike in electricity prices. (Vesa Moilanen – Lehtikuva)
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TYTTI TUPPURAINEN, the chairperson of the Social Democratic Parliamentary Group, is surprised by inaction by the government in the face of surging electricity prices.
“The government itself states in the government programme that a model for a market crisis should be devised, but nothing has been done. The government seems to have frozen up and left citizens alone to cope with the rough electricity prices,” she said to Helsingin Sanomat on Saturday.
When electricity prices rose in 2022, she reminded, opposition parties were calling for action from the government of Prime Minister Sanna Marin (SDP).
“The opposition leaders of the time, the National Coalition’s Petteri Orpo and the Finns Party’s Riikka Purra, demanded that the government hold an emergency meeting and intervene in the situation without delay as electricity prices were spiking at 60–70 cents per kilowatt hour,” she reminded. “On Friday, the price increased to two euros, but we didn’t hear a thing.”
Jani Mäkelä, the chairperson of the Finns Party Parliamentary Group, argued that the two situations are dissimilar, with the recent price spike caused by an “unfortunate combination of conditions”.
“We’re talking about a temporary disruption rather than a permanent situation in my understanding. In that sense, it’s no use paying too much attention to this one day – of course beyond learning how this happened and how we could possibly prevent this in the future,” he stated to Helsingin Sanomat.
In 2022, he clarified, support measures were justified due to concerns that electricity prices could remain high for months.
Tuppurainen, however, argued that the government should devise various measures because similar price spikes are possible also in the future.
Matias Mäkynen, a deputy chairperson of the Social Democratic Party, reminded a day earlier that the previous government did devise support measures, even though they could have been targeted better. The current government, meanwhile, appears to have forgotten about the issue altogether because the fears leading up to last winter did not materialise.
He also voiced his bafflement that authorities spoke exclusively about electricity sufficiency in the build-up to last weekend.
“There isn’t an authority that’s making sure prices are reasonable and the effects of price spikes are balanced out. It isn’t enough to simply guarantee that there’s enough electricity, but we also need guardrails that ensure the prices are reasonable,” he commented on X on Friday.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
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Source: www.helsinkitimes.fi
