The government committed its responsibility, on Monday, in the joint plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, on the modification of GEO 114/2018.

“The draft law stipulates the correction of the provisions related to the energy field, the financial-banking field, the communications field, the field of private pension funds. It also includes a series of measures, exactly as the GEO 114 included, in several fields of activity, from issues related to bonuses to issues that are related to different types of regulations,” said Prime Minister Ludovic Orban in the Parliament plenary, according to Agerpres.

Orban explained that the return to a free market will not happen from January 1, but during a transitional period, which will allow the return in good conditions when setting market prices and which will allow time for the Government to ensure the regulation regarding the support to vulnerable consumers.

“During the transition period, until we return to a liberalized system of forming the price of electricity and natural gas, we have assumed the responsibility to come up with legislation to regulate the situation of the vulnerable consumer. Also, we abolished the 2% tax that was imposed for energy companies and that generated extremely negative effects,” said Orban.

The fine on the turnover of energy companies will have a minimum threshold of 2%

The 10% fine on the turnover imposed by the controversial Ordinance 114 to the energy sector producers for the delivery of gas or electricity at regulated prices has been modified, now having a variable threshold of 2-10%, according to the draft law amending GEO 114.

The amendment belongs to a group of Hungarian minority party UDMR MPs, who noted that, in the current form, the contravention was practically unenforceable. According to Law 180/2002, a contravention can only be applied if it explicitly specifies a minimum value, which allows the offender to pay within 15 days half of the minimum value, according to Profit.ro. According to the authors of the amendment, in the old form, the minimum value is considered to be zero, which would lead to a null value of any contravention imposed.