The Romanian state should help consumers directly, not through suppliers, as is happening now, as energy companies have not yet received the money promised from the state budget, the heads of the largest energy suppliers said on Tuesday, during a conference.

Carlo Pignoloni, CEO of Enel Romania, pointed out that the current situation, in which the suppliers of household customers do not receive their money from the state, affects the entire energy chain.

“To be clear, we expect the state to compensate the customers directly, not to put us, the suppliers, in the middle, because this puts a lot of financial stress on us. It should be a direct help, because also the law says so, it is not the supplier who has to pay for the compensation, but the state. Given that the repayment is delayed and must be made retroactively over several months, the financial impact is very high on suppliers. I want to warn that not only suppliers are affected, but we are talking about a systemic problem that affects the whole chain and if it is not solved soon, the whole energy system will collapse,” Pignoloni warned, according to Agerpres.

Volker Raffel, CEO of E.ON Romania, also argued that consumer aid should be provided directly and referred to other issues in the current legislation. “No payments have been made so far from the state to suppliers. In addition, the levels in the tariffs set by law do not cover our costs, distribution, transport and other tariffs, so the law needs to be changed. We will reduce investments,” said Raffel.

He stressed that solutions exist and must be taken soon, not on March 30 for April 1.

Present at the conference, Ondrej Safar, CEO of CEZ Romania, agrees. “We are in the same situation as the rest, we can’t wait to receive the compensation money, so far our supply company has compensated this money, which affects us a lot,” the CEZ official said.

In his opinion, the current scheme is very expensive for the state, as it subsidizes energy for everyone. “Aid should be directed at those in need, but this is a political decision. I think this support should be directed at vulnerable consumers and it is clear that these categories of consumers need help. In the future, we need investment in generation and a better market,” Safar added.