> But to deny that things managed by the State are more expensive overall is a clear sign of ideological blindness.
As the saying in Europe goes: Neo-liberalism will continue until the economy improves.
Do we have 20 years already since people are allowed to set up a solar panel in their backyard and sell excess capacity to the grid?
Do we have 20 years where farmers can grow their own biodiesel to (at least) power their own machinery, or does the state giving them subsidies to let them keep growing vegetables, wine and beef without having to compete in the global market?
Energy package 3 was supposed to fix this with some additional regulation and standardization. It did not. Energy package 4 is supposed to fix this with more standardization and regulations (including distributed generation; which I am in favor of btw.) however, it will not.
The problem is the privatizations of the 2000s, not in the regulations surrounding small scale solar. The problem is neo-liberalism. Get rid of corporations rent-seeking on our infrastructure. Our energy bills will not become lower until then.
Under state-owned infrastructure, you simply can never know the real cost of any of the services, because state-owned companies depend a lot more on subsidies that come from tax revenue than actual revenue from the service itself.
> Get rid of corporations rent-seeking on our infrastructure.
Get rid of corporations altogether. I firmly believe that any company (state owned or not) with more than 150 employees should be broken down.