The Romanian authorities and the European Commission officials are having talks on energy prices in Brussels
The Romanian authorities from the field of energy regulation have held talks with European Commission officials in Brussels. This round of talks comes after in March, this EU body sanctioned Romania for having violated legislation in the field of gas distribution. How was this situation possible?
Zoltan Nagy, Vice-president of the Romanian Energy Regulatory Authority, ANRE, said during a conference on energy, that when the energy market was liberalized in 2017, the mechanisms in place weren't mature enough so the Romanian gas market wasn't completely ready for liberalization.
This was the reason for which in December 2018, the Romanian government made the decision to cap the price for domestic energy production for a while. According to the ANRE official, all surveys conducted at that time showed that there was no point for Bucharest to continue the timetable agreed upon with the European Commission because we would have faced a weird situation in which the imported gas had become cheaper than the timetable prices. However, gas price doubled over a period of one year and a half and because the European Commission does not agree with the idea of protecting household consumption, an infringement procedure was initiated against Romania in March, as the country was infringing upon the European legislation in the field. Zoltan Nagy has admitted there are incompatibilities between the natural gas directive and the EU treaty.
Zoltan Nagy: "There is a legal framework for temporary measures at the level of member countries, which are aimed at protecting certain categories of consumers. The fact that in our country this protection is granted to all household consumers might not be entirely right, but our talks with the European Commission have reached a certain level and after renouncing these temporary measures, we could have a genuinely-liberalized market."
The ANRE Vice-president has also added that measures must be taken in order to protect the vulnerable consumers from fluctuations in gas or electricity prices. Most household consumers do not need protection at this time and those really vulnerable aren't protected enough, Zoltan Nagy has also explained. According to him transaction mechanisms on the wholesale market are also important and ANRE is working on these issues right now.
As for the 2% contribution from the energy producers' turnover, which will go directly into the institution's budget, ANRE proposed amendments to its own functioning regulations so that after the regulator has covered all its administrative expenses, the surplus will be used in energy-efficiency projects all the more so as Romania is also under infringement in terms of the rehabilitation of the collective residential buildings.
(translated by bill)
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