The bill on the new local government code the Interior Ministry has put up for consultation brings back to the fore the issue of collecting municipal fees through electricity bills, even under the threat of power cuts.
The draft law keeps in place an order established nearly 50 years ago, when PPC was the sole supplier of electricity and the cost of electricity was not traded on the stock market.
As electricity prices soar to levels that are difficult for most consumers to cover, using the power bill as a mechanism to collect taxes, fees and other charges not related to energy makes it even more difficult to pay it off.
Despite the European directives to exempt electricity bills from non-energy taxes and fees, Greece legislates to extend a practice that can deprive its citizens of a basic good such as electricity if they do not pay third-party taxes, which it actually increases.
Access to electricity is used as a means of forced collection of municipal and other revenues.
