{"id":628788,"date":"2026-09-18T18:22:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T18:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/628788\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T18:22:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T18:22:15","slug":"eu-ministers-mull-windfall-tax-on-excessive-profits-of-power-companies-during-hormuz-crisis-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/628788\/","title":{"rendered":"EU ministers mull windfall tax on excessive profits of power companies during Hormuz crisis \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Half a dozen states have requested a discussion of an EU-wide windfall tax on power companies that have made excessive profits during the energy crisis, T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris has said. <\/p>\n

Harris said these states had a genuine view on the issue and said he was very eager to facilitate a debate on the matter with Eurogroup finance ministers<\/a>, as part of his remit during Ireland\u2019s presidency of the EU Council<\/a>. <\/p>\n

At the Eurogroup meeting in Dublin Castle<\/a>, Harris said there was a \u201cdawning reality\u201d of a small number of companies making extraordinarily large profits as a result of the energy crisis caused by the war in the Middle East. <\/p>\n

\u201c[The profits] are not on the basis of enterprise or innovation, but are based simply on the fact that the Strait of Hormuz is closed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the same time, households and businesses are really, really under pressure, and there\u2019s the inflationary impact of that as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said it was yet to be determined if there was a consensus across EU countries on the issue. \u201cMy job as president of Ecofin is to act as an honest broker, facilitate discussion, and so we\u2019ll have that initial discussion today,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Speaking a little later, European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde said energy prices were a \u201csignificant variable\u201d in the bank\u2019s projections.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is obviously having an impact on not only consumers and investors, but also the determination that we have to bring inflation to the 2 per cent target,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving said that, we think that we are well positioned in order to respond to more data, more information, more numbers to have a good assessment of changes. But when I say that uncertainty defines our horizon, it fully justifies that we address the situation meeting-by-meeting, with good analysis, good data, good numbers, so we can [respond] adequately.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"What is driving the abuse and intimidation of politicians here?<\/p>\n

The Eurogroup president, Greek finance minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis, said the single currency economy had proved stronger than was expected at the beginning of this year. \u201cGrowth in the second quarter was better than projected, and on current evidence, this momentum should continue,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cEurope has shown this resilience. The task is now to turn this resilience to strength, because at the same time, the challenges are multiplying.\u201d<\/p>\n

He referred to the war in the Middle East\u2019s impact on fossil fuel prices and said the EU needed to accelerate its path towards greater energy independence. <\/p>\n

EU commissioner on energy Valdis Dombrovskis said several member states had already put forward initiatives for windfall taxes. He said that, from the consumer perspective, the commission was ready to support member states in this regard. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Half a dozen states have requested a discussion of an EU-wide windfall tax on power companies that have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,37635,5148,61,60],"class_list":["post-628788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-energy-crisis","tag-european-union","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}