Prime Minister Florin Cîțu announced on Thursday that he will speed up the approval of the law on vulnerable consumers, so that its provisions will enter into force on 1 January 2022, instead of September, as the current draft law under debate in Parliament.
“The vulnerable consumer. I asked the Minister of Energy to come up with a solution and we will have a solution to finance and approve the vulnerable consumer sooner, because these companies (in energy, e.n.) have higher profits than they have had so far and we can there to transfer. It has to come into force from 1 January 2022, so it has to be approved as soon as possible,” the prime minister said.
He said he is attending a meeting with representatives of the authorities and energy companies (ANRE, the Energy Minister, the Competition Council, OPCOM, Transelectrica) to understand what is happening with the increase in electricity and gas prices.
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“I have two objectives at that meeting. I would like to understand exactly what is happening with the price increase. I know there are several explanations: and the price increase for those green certificates and so on. I called the Competition Council, because there is a big difference from the free market to the competitive market. I want to make sure that Romania meets the conditions of a competitive market. A free market is one thing, but only if you have a competitive market can prices come down,” said Cîțu.
The energy market has been fully liberalized since this year, from 1 January for natural gas and from 1 July for electricity, which has led to a series of significant energy price increases.
There is also a draft law in Parliament establishing social protection measures for vulnerable energy consumers, which would apply from September 2022 for the winter 2022-2023. The Energy Minister had previously said that he wanted to bring this forward so that vulnerable consumers could be financially supported in paying their bills from this winter rather than 2022.