Czech government shifts renewables charge onto budget to cut electricity prices

PRAGUE, Dec 16 (Reuters) - The new Czech government will take 17 billion crowns ($823.84 million) in next year's payments for renewable electricity for customers onto the state budget from January in order to cut final prices for households and companies, Industry and Trade Minister Karel Havlicek said on Tuesday.

The shift will reduce final power prices by about 10%, he told a news conference, more for large consumers and less for households.

The populist-nationalist cabinet of Andrej Babis, which was appointed on Monday, made lower power prices one of its landmark targets.

The cut will help reduce headline inflation but will burden the budget.

The government has said it will propose a new 2026 central state budget in January, after rejecting a draft proposed by the previous centre-right cabinet as unrealistic, hinting at a possibly higher deficit than the previously proposed 286 billion-crown gap.

($1 = 20.6350 Czech crowns)