The Competition Council is closely monitoring the electricity market, in the context of price liberalization, and already has two ongoing investigations on this issue, the president of the institution, Bogdan Chiritoiu, told Agerpres on Wednesday.

“Since the beginning of the liberalization process, we have been involved, together with the Ministry of Energy, ANRE, in the effort to identify the best solutions in favor of consumers, especially domestic ones. We carefully analyze what is happening on the market. We already have two ongoing investigations and we will use all legal levers to discourage any incorrect behavior, because it can undermine the entire liberalization process,” Chiriţoiu said.

The statement came in the context in which the Minister of Energy announced that he suspects an illegal cartel agreement between energy suppliers, as they have not purchased electricity for the population at the lowest possible costs.

Minister Virgil Popescu said that prices had not yet settled in the market after the liberalization in January, and suppliers were betting that the authorities would return to regulated prices and had not purchased energy for the second half of the year.