ATHENS – Greek households continue to be whacked with high electricity bills because the energy market has spiked over Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine that has affected all of Europe, said Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

Bills had more than doubled and his New Democracy government earlier subsidized up to 90 percent of the costs for homeowners and for businesses but the costs soared again with high use of air conditioners during summer heatwaves.

Mitsotakis, said The Financial Times, asked the European Union to intervene – as he did over high food prices – this time saying that the electricity bills are a “prolonged crisis” that need bloc-wide help.

https://www.ft.com/content/eeb2b9c2-448c-4254-8ffe-7b6a433d45d6

In a letter to the European Commission seen by the news site, he said that electricity prices had risen in August from 60 euros ($66.52) to 130 euros ($144.12) per hour and asked President Ursula von der Leyen to help deal with it.

He said she should use the second five-year term he helped her win to “take up the task of pushing through more cross-border capacity” to avoid such spikes in future, although the invasion shows no sign of ending.

Other factors included climate change, hot weather and low rainfall and drought which left reservoirs feeding hydroelectric plants without enough supply to crank up the supplies for households and businesses.

But Mitsotakis said the biggest problem was the invasion and attacks against Ukraine’s electricity grid that exported the product but how has needed to bring in electricity from EU member states.

“This is another cost that Russia’s devastating war is imposing on our economies,” he wrote, the report said, also requesting better oversight of the electricity market, which he called “an incomprehensible black box — even to experts.”

“There is a fundamental distortion in the energy market of south-eastern Europe,” Mitsotakis stated. “Something isn’t working right. I don’t expect immediate solutions, but at least let someone deal with it,” he added, but nothing has yet.