Austria's conservative-led government said on Wednesday it would tighten the conditions of its windfall tax on energy companies, including lowering the threshold to which it applies, to force them to pass on lower prices to retail customers quickly.

At a news conference on measures aimed at addressing stubbornly high inflation, Chancellor Karl Nehammer said: "If energy providers do not immediately start to lower - some are doing that, I hasten to add, but many are not - then we as a republic will make them pay." (Reporting by Francois Murphy, Editing by Louise Heavens)