Bogdan Tudorache

Consumers must benefit from good price offers, and the Minister of Energy, Virgil Popescu, stated that there will be changes in legislation to allow the extension of the consumer information period.

Thus, Popescu stated, at Digi 24, that we have to “wait a few more months” to establish the best prices in the market, in a competitive way.

Basically, there is de facto talk of a postponement of liberalization for consumers remaining in a universal regime. The changes to the energy law will enshrine new rules, which will require suppliers to inform consumers – not just online, as they have largely done so far, as many vulnerable consumers do not have access to the internet.

In addition, the government has a period of break to finally approve a clear and well-defined law on the vulnerable consumer – which has been being worked on for several years by different governments.

“I would not send 6 million people on the road to change their contracts in a month, two or a certain period, but I oblige suppliers to offer the best energy prices, so that the consumer benefits from the best offer. We start from the premise that we have in the center of this competitive market the client, not the supplier,” said Popescu.

“On Thursday, we had a meeting at the Competition Council, together with ANRE, and we agreed on this principle. The supplier must say: if you want to stay with me, you have this offer, if you do not want to stay, you can leave. If you don’t move in the meantime, you have this offer left. That’s the way to do it, not (the cosumer) me looking for offers, as I donțt have time to look, but until I find it, to have the best offer from my supplier, not the most expensive one. This is the principle on which we agreed with ANRE and the Competition Council,” added the Minister of Energy.

“As for the lower price of electricity, I say to wait a few more months. There are already smaller offers, but let’s wait for the prices to settle down and the real competition to start working. In fact, some of the customers will go elsewhere alone, but I am convinced that there will be suppliers who will cannibalize the market of other suppliers. And there are a lot of providers that have people under last resort regime, they haven’t passed them to the competitional segment, or, there’s a market that I’m sure will be attacked by other providers. Or, in order to move the client from one to another, you have to offer conditions and, especially, a better price,” he added.