When the government made decisions about financial support for extremely expensive energy resources for residents and businesses, time was the most important thing - as prices are growing very rapidly, support must be fast, says the Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte.
In this way, she responded to the criticism of some institutions that the Government's support for businesses and residents is too general, and that it can be used by wealthy people and financially strong companies.
"We hear and appreciate that criticism, but it is not the case that the Government is proposing to compensate everyone with only budget funds, but is proposing to move in incremental steps, since price increases are occasional. If the price increase were 10-15 percent, of course, that equalization through income is the most logical, but now, when we are talking about a big jump in prices, there would still be so many people who need support based on income that the very allocation of mechanism and time it is, in fact, of little effect under the circumstances," The Seimas I. Šimonytė spoke to journalists on Thursday.
According to her, the support will give residents time to make decisions that will help save energy in the future.
"During that time, people can make decisions that they can't make very quickly." Let's take gas: the compensable part of the price of natural gas is quite high, otherwise it pays for the state to practically support the replacement of gas boilers to a different method of energy production, which is what it is - a special measure has been launched, but the boilers are not changed in a week or two," said the Prime Minister.
According to I. Šimonytė, the method of support, where part of the burden of rising prices is borne by the resident and part by the state, is balanced.
"A certain distribution of that burden is being balanced here: some price increase is passed on to consumers, a certain part is compensated by the state with taxpayers' money", said I. Šimonytė.
Business support, according to the Prime Minister, is also given based on the assessment of time and price jumps, so the type of support that would help the fastest was chosen.
"First of all, there is accuracy ahead of time, because the price jump is very large and where specific measures need to be created, in order for them to be extremely accurate, for such things, especially if we are talking about business, it is necessary to coordinate the state aid scheme, for whom, it's a pity, but we have to allocate months, not days, not hours, during which one or another decision can be prepared, but these are long procedures that take a lot of time and do not allow us to solve problems here and now", said I. Šimonytė.
"Because of this, the solutions offered to businesses are twofold: they are horizontal, but temporary, and it is very clearly stated that in the future, decisions will be aimed only at those sectors that will need additional help, because even now some of the solutions are for those activities that are energy-intensive , while other solutions are horizontal, but not accurate and expensive," said the Prime Minister.
Representatives of the State Audit Office and the Bank of Lithuania have repeatedly said that the support for residents and businesses provided for in next year's state budget could be more targeted, and the use of funds should be based on analytical data.
In the 2023 budget draft, 812 million is provided for energy price compensation for residents. EUR, and about 230 million more for business. euros.
Author Valdas Pryšmantas
