Socialists demand gas, electricity, district heating price cuts

Budapest, January 19 (MTI) – The opposition Socialist Party has demanded that the retail price of gas should be cut by 20 percent, while the prices of electricity and district heating should be reduced by 10 percent in the wake of shrinking global prices.

Bertalan Toth, the deputy group leader of the party, told a press conference that the profits from lower prices on the world market have so far been reaped by “oligarchs” associated with ruling Fidesz, and demanded that those benefits should go to ordinary residents.

Toth insisted that the price of crude oil had recently been more than halved, followed by global gas prices, and noted that analysts expected the trend to continue.

According to the Socialist initiative, the reductions should be applied from April, and for average amounts of household consumption. Controlled-price energy should not be used “to heat the swimming pool or the sauna”, he said.