Switzerland has discovered the energy crisis as an issue. In the process, politicians are not only giving absurd advice on how to save energy, but the headless actions of the state are also becoming clear.
In Switzerland, the media are currently overflowing with reports on energy saving. Politicians are also involved, and they are hardly lacking in ‘creativity’ to get into the limelight.
Environment Minister Simonetta Sommaruga practically took the cake when she told “20 Minuten” that citizens ‘don’t really need to heat their homes in winter, but should simply warm each other up in bed.’
Price rip-off
Other tips were of an equally banal nature – that ‘people should shower rather than bathe’ and that people should ‘cook with lids on’ so that less energy is consumed. When a journalist asked at the media conference with Federal Councillor Sommaruga and Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin whether the infantile language used in these tips had been chosen specifically to treat the people like children, none of those present knew how to answer.
Of course, the politicians did not miss the reproach to the power companies, suggesting that they would take advantage of the situation and burden the people with high energy prices. The profits that are currently being made due to the high sales prices should be ‘skimmed off as quickly as possible’ it was said in some places.
The state as the main actor
But wait – besides all the tips, that’s where the summer theater really begins. Don’t the energy companies almost all belong direct or indirect to the state? Axpo & Co. are 100 percent owned by the cantons or other state-owned electricity companies. So it’s only too funny to see that it’s precisely these companies that are ripping off the people and that politicians now want to intervene.
On Sunday, even the cantons spoke out in “Le Matin Dimanche” that they should definitely be included in the federal government’s measures to save energy. This would be urgently required anyway, because the energy plants belong mostly to the cantons, cities or municipalities.
Hand-in-hand with foreign countries
And at Axpo, in particular, the state’s actions are becoming even more absurd. The energy company defended its action of even being able to legally claim aid money in Germany, as “Nau.ch” reported.
The Swiss state-owned companies are even giving away subsidies to other countries in the energy crisis.
If one looks at Sommaruga’s remarks, the civil servants simply go to bed with foreign officials, so to speak, and warm each other up.
05.09.2022/kut./ena.
