After the energy market was deregulated on January 1, 2021, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Romania was among the European countries the most severely affected by record-high electricity and natural gas prices. For half a year, in the chaos that set in amid ineffective communication by the authorities at the time, both household and business consumers suffered. The situation became even more complicated after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when the entire European market was deeply shaken, including Romania.
Gradually, however, the situation at national level calmed down, including as a result of the government’s decisions to cap prices. By offsetting electricity and natural gas bills, individuals and industrial operators have been protected from exorbitant prices.
As of April 1 this year, however, the capping should end, at least in theory. Some household consumers have already received written notices to this effect from their energy suppliers. Against the backdrop of steep inflation that has meant a decrease in living standards for many Romanians, significantly higher electricity or gas bills–even doubled in certain cases–would be a hard blow to the family budget.
In this context, the Romanian government could take a decision this week on keeping on the current offset and capping scheme. The solution would be implemented through an emergency order.
The energy minister Sebastian Burduja spoke out however in favour of better targeting this support towards those vulnerable consumers for whom paying for energy utilities represents too great a burden:
Sebastian Burduja: “We expect to have a final decision in the Government, therefore a normative act, an emergency order that will establish exactly what the period after April 1 will look like, namely whether this basic scenario and the same capping and offsetting scheme will be kept for a period of time, let’s say until the end of the year, as the prime minister suggested, or whether there will be a formula to better target the aid for vulnerable Romanians.”
Minister Burduja’s message for dissatisfied consumers is that they can change their supplier at any time:
Sebastian Burduja: “Consumers have full power in their hands. This power means changing their supplier whenever they want. There are no contracts that hold them captive. So, when they receive an offer that they don’t like from their supplier, they go to the National Energy Regulatory Authority website and in a few minutes, online, they can change their supplier to the one that offers them the lowest price or the best conditions, in their opinion.”
And to end with a joke, one of the suppliers in Romania reminds its customers that, in fact, the cheapest energy is the one they don’t consume. (AMP)
