Fortum's comment on the Finnish Government's planned tax
The Finnish Government has today published a plan to establish a new tax on
hydro and nuclear power production that has been built before the Kyoto
agreement of 1997.
According to Fortum, the tax would be against climate and energy policies and
would increase production costs and thus electricity prices.
The tax would benefit energy imports over domestic energy production. It would
also distort competition, because it would be based on estimation and would be
levied on certain production forms only, whereas other production forms would
get State support. Furthermore, the Government's plan would be against the EU's
energy directive according to which energy shall be taxed based on consumption,
not production.
”The very idea of the emissions trading scheme was to direct investments to
emissions-free power production. The emission cost is a steering mechanism;
producers who emit will pay and producers who don't will benefit. A special
hydro and nuclear tax would work against that idea and would, in fact, punish
CO2-free production. At the same time, it would increase uncertainty in the
markets and endanger new investments,” says Fortum's SVP Corporate Development
Timo Karttinen.
Fortum Corporation
Corporate Communications
Further information: Timo Karttinen, SVP Corporate Development, Fortum
Corporation, +358 50 453 6555