The Romanian authorities from the
\nfield of energy regulation have held talks with European Commission officials
\nin Brussels. This round of talks comes after in March, this EU body sanctioned
\nRomania for having violated legislation in the field of gas distribution. How
\nwas this situation possible? <\/p>\n
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Zoltan Nagy, Vice-president of the
\nRomanian Energy Regulatory Authority, ANRE, said during a conference on energy,
\nthat when the energy market was liberalized in 2017, the mechanisms in place
\nweren’t mature enough so the Romanian gas market wasn’t completely ready for liberalization.
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This was the reason for which in
\nDecember 2018, the Romanian government made the decision to cap the price for domestic
\nenergy production for a while. According to the ANRE official, all surveys
\nconducted at that time showed that there was no point for Bucharest to continue
\nthe timetable agreed upon with the European Commission because we would have
\nfaced a weird situation in which the imported gas had become cheaper than the
\ntimetable prices. However, gas price doubled over a period of one year and a
\nhalf and because the European Commission does not agree with the idea of
\nprotecting household consumption, an infringement procedure was initiated
\nagainst Romania in March, as the country was infringing upon the European
\nlegislation in the field. Zoltan Nagy has admitted there are incompatibilities
\nbetween the natural gas directive and the EU treaty. <\/p>\n
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Zoltan Nagy: There is a
\nlegal framework for temporary measures at the level of member countries, which
\nare aimed at protecting certain categories of consumers. The fact that in our
\ncountry this protection is granted to all household consumers might not be
\nentirely right, but our talks with the European Commission have reached a
\ncertain level and after renouncing these temporary measures, we could have a
\ngenuinely-liberalized market.<\/p>\n
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The ANRE Vice-president has also
\nadded that measures must be taken in order to protect the vulnerable consumers
\nfrom fluctuations in gas or electricity prices. Most household consumers do not
\nneed protection at this time and those really vulnerable aren’t protected
\nenough, Zoltan Nagy has also explained. According to him transaction mechanisms
\non the wholesale market are also important and ANRE is working on these issues right
\nnow. <\/p>\n
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As for the 2% contribution from the
\nenergy producers’ turnover, which will go directly into the institution’s
\nbudget, ANRE proposed amendments to its own functioning regulations so that
\nafter the regulator has covered all its administrative expenses, the surplus
\nwill be used in energy-efficiency projects all the more so as Romania is also
\nunder infringement in terms of the rehabilitation of the collective residential
\nbuildings. <\/p>\n
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(translated by bill)<\/p>\n
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The Romanian authorities and the European Commission officials are having talks on energy prices in Brussels<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":81905,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[31522,39672,39673,39671],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-81904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-anre","tag-nagy","tag-turnover","tag-zoltan"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n