The National Trade Union Bloc (NBS) calls on the Government to convene the Tripartite National Council for Social Dialogue (CNTDS), in order to prepare by the authorities a package of measures to reduce the effect of rising energy prices on consumers.

In a press release, NBS representatives appreciate that energy market operators have forced a rapid rise in market prices. “The increase in electricity demand, in the context of the liberalization of the market for household consumers, the international context, but also the special rules imposed by the pandemic, allowed energy market operators to speculate and force a rapid rise in market prices, accelerating alignment at European prices”, writes in the NBS press release.

The NBS proposes a package of measures to reduce the effect of rising prices on consumers:

• the urgent adoption of the normative act on the vulnerable consumer and the revision of the thresholds of assistance of the vulnerable consumer, so as to ensure a real protection of the population in a situation of vulnerability
• the inclusion in the National Strategy on Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction for the period 2021-2027 of a component aimed at energy poverty and implicitly the allocation of financial resources through the future Operational Program for Inclusion and Social Dignity (POIDS) 2021-2027
• reduction of the VAT rate for electricity for the household consumer
• revision of the current profit distribution policy obtained by Hidroelectrica and Romgaz and reinvestment of the profits obtained in the creation of new production capacities leading to the reduction of energy production costs in the medium and long term
• ordering control measures by the competent authorities to identify the causes that led to the increase in prices during this period

The National Trade Union Bloc (founded in November 1991) is one of the five largest representative trade union confederations in Romania, with approximately 320,000 union members, workers from private companies or the public sector.