Poland: The price of gas will increase by over 50%, announces the largest gas supplier in the country. How the government tries to mitigate the impact on the population

The largest supplier of natural gas in Poland, PGNiG, sent letters to its clients informing them that the price of gas will increase by approximately 45% starting in July. The company will also increase the gas distribution price, and the total increase in final costs for customers could reach 50-60%, reports Notes from Poland.

The opposition party Law and Justice (PiS) asked the government to adopt a law that would extend the gas price freeze.

However, the climate minister blames the previous government for the increase in prices and points to the long-term neglect of the development of renewable energy sources as one of the reasons.

According to the letter sent by PGNiG to its customers, published by various Polish media sources, the price for gas with a high methane content will increase from July 1 by 45%, from the current 0.2462 zlotys/kWh to 0.3579 zlotys/kWh , reports the financial publication money.pl.

The same will be true for other types of gas, whose price will increase from 0.2462 zlotys/kWh to 0.3629 zlotys/kWh, i.e. up to 47%.

In addition, distribution tariffs will also be increased by 55-59%. This means that the total bill of Polish consumers could increase by up to 50-60%.

According to the mBank analysts, however, the increases could be lower if the Energy Regulatory Office (URE) asks sellers to reduce tariffs under the threat of losing compensation for selling energy at undervalued prices.

The price of gas for household customers and a group of other protected entities was frozen for 2023 in mid-December 2022 by the former PiS government, after Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine led to the energy crisis in Europe.

The gas price freeze was extended in December 2023 for six months by the new coalition government that replaced PiS following the October elections. However, the gas consumption limits covered by the frost were then halved.

The government currently in power, led by Donald Tusk, decided not to extend the price freeze in the second half of the year.

Instead, he intends to introduce vouchers for energy, with values ​​between 300 zlotys (69.4 euros) and 1,200 zlotys (277.6 euros), to mitigate the impact of price increases, but these will only cover certain households with reduced income.

According to the Interia news site, approximately 3.5 million households out of the 14.1 million households in the country would benefit from these vouchers.

The news of the increases was criticized by former PiS Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who qualified it as a “massive attack on the wallets of Poles”.

“This year, thanks to this ‘happy’ team, the beginning of the holidays will not, unfortunately, be associated with a happy relaxation. And this is just the beginning, because it will last even longer during the winter,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

However, the climate and environment minister, Paulina Hennig-Kloska, blames the former government for this increase.

“The previous government did not adopt any regulation for this year, nor did it secure funds in the state budget to stabilize energy prices,” she told money.pl.

She added that the high energy prices are the result of “long-term negligence in the development of renewable energy sources”, which has made the Polish energy sector the largest emitter in Europe. “As a result, energy consumers are burdened by the costs of CO2 emission certificates.”