Bogdan Tudorache
Struggling uncertainty on legal field, the renewable industry players in Romania, with investments worth several billion euros, await for a final support scheme to be enforced. The recent law that curbs subsidies by reducing the number of Green Certificates (GCs) was approved by Parliament, but ammended and rejected by Romanian president Traian Băsescu, as the law has not been pre-notified to the European Commission. However, if EC approves it, the changes will come into effect possibly retroactively, starting January 2014.
European Commssion will most likely approve the current changes in the Romanian renewable energy that severely cut subsidies to local producers, said the president of the Romanian Competition Council, Bogdan Chirițoiu.
”My assumption is that the law will be re-voted by the Parliament…and my expectation is that changes will be accepted by the European Commission”, Chirițoiu said.
”The EC is by its nature reluctant to grant subsidies, … there is a trend in Europe to recalculate the costs of energy” Chirițoiu added.
The climate in Bruxelles is to give less subsidies to renewables.
However, Chirițoiu considers that the IRR (investment return rate) ”will stay close to what the EC previously approved,”even if large consumers may be exempted by the government of buying part of renewable energy.
Yet, it is not yet known what the deduction for large industry players will be. If they will benefit from a reduced quota, then ”somebody else will have to pay for them”.
At the same time, when the law will come back from the EC to the Romanian Parliament, if the law passes through, the Romanian president Traian Băsescu will have no other choice than to greenlight it, Iulian Chifu, a presidential adviser, said.
”The president will be obliged to sent it to the Official Gazzette”, Chifu said.
