Finland to offset high energy prices with subsidies, tax cuts
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HELSINKI, Feb 18 (Reuters) – The Finnish government plans to offset high energy prices with subsidies and tax cuts, Finance Minister Annika Saarikko said on Friday.
Saarikko presented a list of 17 measures that included temporarily increasing subsidies for travel to work, suspending property taxes for farmers and – in the future – backing loans for investments that improve households’ energy efficiency.
“The toll on us has been relatively smaller than on many other EU countries, for example in heating and electricity bills, thanks to the fact that we are not as dependent on natural gas as many others,” she told a news conference.
With petrol prices for the first time climbing above 2 euros per litre, the centre-left government has been under pressure to ease the impact of rising energy prices on Finnish households.
Consumer price inflation accelerated to 4.4% in January from 3.5% in the previous month, Statistics Finland said on Friday, citing rising energy and fuel prices as the key drivers.
Finnish power prices have followed trends elsewhere in the Nordic region, rising steadily from a slump in the spring of 2020 caused by pandemic-linked lockdowns, electricity market operator Nord Pool data shows.
The surge in electricity prices has prompted neighbouring Sweden and Norway to subsidise household electricity bills.
(Reporting by Essi LehtoEditing by Mark Heinrich and Gareth Jones)
