Any change for electricity and gas bills? Towards an extension of the social tariff
The federal energy regulator has just issued an opinion on proposals aimed at extending the right to the social tariff. This should be able to be granted to people benefiting from the increased intervention (BIM).
Journalist in the General Editorial Team, editorialist
Published on 04/08/2024 at 11:53
The federal regulator of electricity and gas, Creg, has just issued an opinion on a possible extension of the social tariff. Today, around half a million people benefit from this social tariff, calculated each quarter by Creg based on the cheapest commercial contracts. To access the right to this preferential rate, beneficiaries do not have to do anything, it is automatic.
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Not for everyone
Beneficiaries belong to various categories, defined by law. Examples include beneficiaries of an integration income or tenants of social housing “whose heating with natural gas or heat depends on a collective installation”, says the legislation. But the criteria are much broader. However, some people with very low incomes do not benefit from the social rate.
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Different parties have submitted texts to extend the right to the social tariff. It is on these texts that the Creg has ruled. We will also remember that the right to the social tariff had been extended, notably during the energy price crisis, but this extension ended on 1er July 2023. It had “generated a doubling of the number of beneficiaries”, recalls the Creg. In its proposed law, Ecolo-Groen puts forward the idea of extending the social tariff to “beneficiaries of increased intervention” (BIM status). The CD&V for its part tabled a motion for a resolution going more or less in the same direction. With the introduction of an income criterion but “according to a decreasing system”.
Income criterion
Here is an extract from the Creg’s opinions on these points. “Creg recommends opening the right to the social rate on the basis of an income criterion, in addition to the current grant on the basis of social status. The income criterion proposed in the recommendations of the Platform to combat energy poverty of the King Baudouin Foundation, namely the ceiling used for BIM clients with this status based on income, is considered relevant, and presents the advantage to be already used at the national level. (…) Furthermore, Creg shares the opinion that the introduction of an income criterion in the granting of the social tariff could be supplemented by the introduction of an income ceiling. » On the other hand, on the decreasing side of the social tariff, the Creg notes that the idea “comes up against operational difficulties”.
The conclusion of all this is that we should move towards a reform of the social tariff system but the Creg also draws the government’s attention to the impact it would have on the state budget. The general idea is that we can add to the beneficiaries people who are currently excluded, and this on the basis of income criteria. This criterion “could be modeled on the ceilings set by Inami in the context of beneficiaries of the increased intervention (BIM, NDR)”, notes the Creg which published an opinion along these lines more than a year ago already .
Energy prices have fallen sharply, as we have indicated on several occasions, but they remain much higher than before the crisis and Russia’s invasion of part of Ukraine.
