The new scheme designed by the Government to offset and cap electricity and gas bills by March 31, for both domestic and non-household consumers, went into effect on Tuesday.

The executive approved the GEO containing this support scheme on January 25, 2022.

The main changes compared to the scheme that was in force from November 1 provide for the decrease of the ceiling from 1 lei per kWh to 0.80 lei per kWh for electricity and from 0.37 lei per kWh to 0.31 lei per kWh for gas, according to Agerpres.

At the same time, if it falls within the consumption of 500 kWh for electricity and 300 cubic meters for gas per month, the consumer benefits from an additional compensation up to 0.68 lei for electricity and about 0.22 lei for natural gas, with all taxes included.

Although the PSD requested the application of the scheme retroactively, from January 1 or even from November 1, the Minister of Energy, Virgil Popescu, stated that this would not have been constitutional.

“We do not want to risk unconstitutionality and no law is acting retroactively, so it cannot be applied retroactively, but from the clear deadline of February 1. We will discuss in the coalition in the near future and we will think about what we will do from April 1. We have several scenarios,” Popescu said a week ago.

He pointed out that the budgetary impact of this scheme is of 3 billion lei, money that exists in the state budget.