The value that the state should return to the economic operators from the Energy Transition Fund cannot be estimated at present, the amount of 27 billion lei circulated in the press being an erroneous one, this representing the entire amount transferred in the last two years to the fund, he states representatives of the Ministry of Energy.
“The Ministry of Energy specifies that the amount of 27 billion lei circulated in certain press articles, representing the “amount to be returned” to economic operators, is erroneous. The authors of such articles wrongly referred to the entire amount transferred to the last 2 years in the Energy Transition Fund – an amount that will not be fully returned to economic operators, for the following reasons: 1. The provisions declared unconstitutional will no longer be applicable in the case in which the exception of unconstitutionality was invoked, nor in the cases pending before the courts, in which these provisions are relevant. Therefore, only the economic operators who formulated exceptions of unconstitutionality with the same object declared unconstitutional by the Court or have pending litigations with the object of restitution of the amounts from the Energy Transition Fund, they may possibly benefit from the recovery of these amounts, if they also meet the other conditions requested by the court of law common; 2. Also, economic operators who have a final court decision rejecting their sums, but who invoked, during the process, an exception of unconstitutionality with the same declared object, can also benefit from the restitution of the amounts, as an exception unconstitutional by the Court, thus opening the way to review the court decision, according to art. 510 para. (1) point 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure”, explained the representatives of the ministry, according to Agerpres.
According to the ME, currently, “since the number of the previously mentioned legal subjects is not known, nor the amount of the sums requested by these economic operators”, it is not possible to estimate the value that the state should return.
“This approach will only be possible after the publication of the reasoning of the Constitutional Court of Romania in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, and after the inventory of all pending litigations at the court from which the case originates (the court a quo), as well as those for which the parties are reinstated in the revision period, with the calculation of all petitions from the summons requests”, they point out.
The President of the Intelligent Energy Association (AEI), Dumitru Chisăliță, conveyed on Friday, through a press release, that the populist decisions taken by politically appointed people in institutions in the energy sector and beyond, are going to cost us a lot in the future, under the conditions in which the surcharge on electricity producers imposed from 2022 was declared unconstitutional.
He specified that the state collected from the overtaxation of electricity producers, decided by GEO 27/2022, about 27 billion lei in the last two years, i.e. 5.43 billion euros, to which interest of another three billion could be added of lei (0.6 billion euros).
The statements of the AEI president follow the decision of the Constitutional Court of November 7, 2024, according to which the overcharging of electricity producers is unconstitutional by the imposition in 2022 of the so-called contribution to the Energy Transition Fund.
“The Constitutional Court (CCR) decided that the overtaxation of electricity producers, by imposing in 2022 the so-called contribution to the Energy Transition Fund, consisting of their additional income resulting from wholesale sales transactions at prices over 450 lei/MWh (threshold reduced in the meantime to 400 lei/MWh), it contravenes the country’s Basic Law”, Chisăliță pointed out.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Energy sent on Thursday, after the decision of the Constitutional Court, that it will carefully evaluate all the legal and technical aspects of the decision, in order to identify the most suitable measures to put the future text of the law in line with the provisions of the Constitution, but and to ensure the stability of the energy market and the continued protection of final consumers.
“The Court’s decision revealed that the obligation to contribute to the energy transition fund imposed on certain electricity producers would contravene the constitutional principles regarding the fair placement of fiscal burdens and economic freedom. The Ministry of Energy emphasizes the importance of an in-depth analysis of the motivation of the decision in order to fully understands its implications on the regulations and mechanisms applicable in the energy sector. Once the motivation is available, the Ministry will carefully evaluate all the legal and technical aspects of the decision, in order to identify the most appropriate measures to put the future law text in in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, but also to ensure the stability of the energy market and the continuation of the protection of final consumers”, stated the Ministry of Energy.
In the meeting of November 7, 2024, the Constitutional Court admitted the exception of unconstitutionality and found that the provisions of art. 15 and those of Annex no. 6 of GEO no. 27/2022 regarding the measures applicable to final customers in the electricity market are unconstitutional and natural gas in the period April 1, 2022-March 31, 2023, as well as for the amendment and completion of some normative acts in the field of energy, with subsequent amendments and additions, according to a press release from the CCR.
In essence, the Court held that the criticized legal provisions that impose the obligation to pay the contribution to the energy transition fund by certain electricity producers disregard, mainly, the principle of the fair placement of fiscal burdens, enshrined in art. 56 of the Constitution, and the provisions of art. .45 of the Basic Law on economic freedom and free initiative, affecting fair competition and discouraging the production of energy from renewable sources.