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Germans spend €150 million on hold

Germans spent more than 600 million minutes waiting on premium phone calls – and paid €150 million doing so, new figures showed on Saturday. Politicians have failed to hang up on expensive numbers despite discussing a ban.

Germans spend €150 million on hold
Photo: DPA

“These rip-off phone numbers are showing no sign of slowing down,” said Bärbel Höhn, deputy leader of the Green Party, which published the figures.

She told the regional paper Saarbrücker Zeitung the government was not doing enough to stop people being over-charged.

Hotlines and call centres, usually on 0180 codes were the worst offenders, keeping customers waiting for more than 616 million minutes last year. This cost €86 million, the Green Party report showed.

Sex and quiz phone lines, often hosted on 0900 numbers, kept people waiting for 48 million minutes, at a cost of €58 million. These numbers have an average cost of €1.20 a minute.

A telecommunications bill is being discussed in parliament, and includes a clause banning some expensive phone charges.

Under the proposal, only free numbers and those with area codes would be allowed to keep people waiting for a call. If companies want to charge people who are ringing they must set a flat price.

Yet this would not be enough, said Höhn. “There big loopholes which mean that recorded messages and choosing from a menu will still cost money,” she said.

The telecommunications bill includes other measures which have held it up in parliament, so any premium phone line ban itself being kept on hold.

DPA/The Local/jcw

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BUSINESS

France’s EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge

French energy giant EDF has unveiled net profit of €10billion and cut its massive debt by increasing nuclear production after problems forced some plants offline.

France's EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge

EDF hailed an “exceptional” year after its loss of €17.9billion in 2022.

Sales slipped 2.6 percent to €139.7billion , but the group managed to slice debt by €10billion euros to €54.4billion.

EDF said however that it had booked a €12.9 billion depreciation linked to difficulties at its Hinkley Point nuclear plant in Britain.

The charge includes €11.2 billion for Hinkley Point assets and €1.7billion at its British subsidiary, EDF Energy, the group explained.

EDF announced last month a fresh delay and additional costs for the giant project hit by repeated cost overruns.

“The year was marked by many events, in particular by the recovery of production and the company’s mobilisation around production recovery,” CEO Luc Remont told reporters.

EDF put its strong showing down to a strong operational performance, notably a significant increase in nuclear generation in France at a time of historically high prices.

That followed a drop in nuclear output in France in 2022. The group had to deal with stress corrosion problems at some reactors while also facing government orders to limit price rises.

The French reactors last year produced around 320.4 TWh, in the upper range of expectations.

Nuclear production had slid back in 2022 to 279 TWh, its lowest level in three decades, because of the corrosion problems and maintenance changes after
the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hinkley Point C is one of a small number of European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) worldwide, an EDF-led design that has been plagued by cost overruns
running into billions of euros and years of construction delays.

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