The Council of State rejected the request of a group of bakers to extend to the whole of this profession the tariff shield on electricity prices, which only applies to some of them, we learned Friday from the applicants’ lawyer.
I’Union of Independent Artisan Bakers (Udabi) and seven bakers had invoked in summary proceedings before the highest administrative court a situation of urgency and imminent danger for the sustainability of their businesses.
“It’s absurd”, reacts the Udabi
They pointed to soaring electricity prices for bakers whose electricity meter exceeds a power of 36 kilovolt-amperes (kVa) and whose electricity price increase is therefore not limited to 15% this year.
To justify its rejection, the Council of State considered that the application of the price shield did not present “the character of provisional safeguard measures at very short notice” and that the applicant companies were not “exposed at short notice to cessation of payment”.
“It’s absurd, it’s like going to the emergency room with a heart attack and being told, come back when your heart stops,” reacted Udabi president Jérémy Ferrer , quoted by his lawyer Christophe Lèguevaques in a press release.
An “extremely complex” shock absorber
Me Lèguevaques specified that he was studying “other solutions before the widely documented threat” of the disappearance of many bakeries “becomes a deeply regretted fact”.
For bakers excluded from the tariff shield, the government has put in place a shock absorber which should relieve them of 15 to 20% of their electricity bill, which the State pays for.
But for the collective of bakers, its implementation is “of such complexity that even the electricity suppliers do not know how to use it”, the beneficiaries having to advance the costs “without being certain of receiving one day the promised aid.