Without the liberalization of the energy market, investors will not come to build new power plants, in the context in which Romania already has problems with consumption coverage, said on Tuesday Niculae Havrileţ, Secretary of State in the Ministry of Energy.

“The free market is not a political desideratum, but a law of nature. Without the liberalization of markets in any sector, we will never have an appetite for investment. Who would invest in an energy production capacity knowing that the price they will get from the sale of energy will be regulated by the state, without ensuring the right to recover the investment?” said the ministerial official, according to Agerpres.

As provided by the country’s Constitution, Romania’s economy is a free market economy, he added.

“This is amply exemplified in the functioning of energy markets in general, where if you don’t have a free market that works properly, you don’t have investment. If you don’t have investment, what is happening right now…happens – there is no interest in investing in new energy production capacities. When the consumption is higher than 8,500 MW, we have problems in ensuring the adequacy of NES,” Havrileţ specified.

He recalled that the electricity market has once again been successfully liberalized. Unfortunately, GEO 114/2018 pulled a mature and liquid market back by five years.

“GEO 114 stomped the free market, and the return was just as forced. Here the National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE) is considered, in my opinion, unjustly to be the culprit. But we must accept that ANRE intervened when GEO 114 was abolished, and Regulation 943 provided that from January 1 there should be no regulated prices,” Havrileţ added.