Most businesses in the gastro sector are threatened by energy arrears

Thousands of catering facilities will have to deal with high energy bills themselves, as the Government isn't planning to launch a compensation scheme for the final quarter of last year, according to a stance by the Slovak Hotels and Restaurants Association (AHRS) provided to TASR by its president Marek Harbulak. Harbulak noted that accommodation and catering facilities are still dealing with extremely high arrears for energy, with more than half of them unable to settle their liabilities without state aid. Businesses were putting their hopes in the promised compensation scheme, which would have helped them to cover at least part of the costs from the end of last year. However, the Economy Ministry probably won't announce a respective call for October-December 2022, as there's no political will for that, stated Harbulak. The AHRS president pointed to the alarming situation in the accommodation and catering sector resulting from the energy crisis. According to him, almost half of the facilities purchased energy at much higher than capped prices in October-December 2022, and most of their energy-bill arrears are from this very period. Therefore, the association in January appealed directly to the economy minister, asking him to announce a call for compensating high energy prices in that period. However, nothing has happened since then, said Harbulak, adding that the state has failed to carry out its role in connection with the energy crisis. "The Economy Ministry has paid out €107 million in total to applicants for compensation for August-September 2022. However, this is only around one third of the sum allocated for this purpose," stressed Harbulak. Therefore, AHRS has called on the Government and leaders of individual coalition parties to stop politicking and start fulfilling their role in connection with the energy crisis as soon as possible.