Fortum's comment on the Finnish Government's planned tax
Fortum Corporation Press release 31.3.2009
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