Energy market authorities and players, along with civil society, have to resume talks on gas market liberalization and functionality, Anca Dragu, Deputy General Manager of E.ON Romania, told at the 2019 Energy Strategy Summit, an event organized by energynomics.ro.
Romania’s objectives for the years 2030-2050 require ambitious programs and a functioning market.
“The entire energy sector must have a more ambitious behavior, along with the authorities of each country. That’s why we need a functional market. What we have seen in the last few months and in 2018 was a market that has worked with many syncopes – and I am referring to the gas market,” said Dragu.
“In December 2018 came the ordinance (GEO 114), which aimed to regulate, in an administrative and brutal manner, the relations between the various participants in the energy market and even in the economy in general. This law has put investors in front of an overnight decision and has significantly affected the appetite for investment and the prospects for companies in different areas. What has happened is the result of deferred measures for a longer period of time. It is time to sit down at the table – authorities, civil society, producers, distributors, suppliers, and create a sustainable market that can develop and operate on the basis of mechanisms so as to avoid new government abrupt interventions,” said Dragu.
Therefore, the gas supply must have quantities and transactions for at least one year, have a reference, benchmark price index, whilst the vulnerable consumer concept needs to be reconsidered.
“Efforts to define vulnerable consumers have been made since 2007, and then between 2012 and 2016, and now the establishment of the inter-ministerial commission by the Dăncilă government is an absolutely welcome measure and a necessary step to bring some normality to the gas market.”
According to the Emerton study conducted at FPPG’s request, nearly 20% of the population would need financial support for utility payments.
“This mechanism is absolutely necessary. Today everyone benefits from a subsidy … There must be a 1-2 year calendar to put all the ingredients on the table in order to have a liberalized, functioning market so that we finally reach a liberalized price. Simple liberalization of the price creates only other problems to everyone,” concluded Dragu.
