The Romanian electricity market must be completely rethought, and the energy must go from producers directly to suppliers and industrial consumers, without passing through the hands of traders, said on Tuesday the Minister of Energy, Virgil Popescu, in a profile conference.

“Electricity needs a restructuring of the market and ANRE has an important role to rethink the market. The energy of producers must go directly to suppliers and industrial consumers, and the role of traders must be better defined. The price on the spot market is much higher, which shows that someone is speculating and we do not have a market for bilateral contracts. The links should be as small as possible and the energy should not pass through various hands,” the minister said, according to Agerpres.

Asked why the authorities did not cap the price of energy to producers, he replied that market intervention can only be done to the final customer, according to European law.

“In addition, to do this you need to have energy available, and the energy was already sold to us. In this way, the producers earned more, but also gave more to the state budget, so that we could finance the scheme of consumer support. This principle was followed,” Popescu explained.

According to him, the distributors will be able to access European funds for the modernization of the networks.

“They will be able to access the Modernization Fund, we have found a formula and it is normal for them to access the funds. Losses or gains can be directly settled by ANRE, it is the one that sets the distribution tariffs and I am convinced that there will be solutions, without affecting the funds for grid modernization,” added the minister.

Regarding the payment of the amounts due to the suppliers from the state budget, within the invoice compensation scheme, Popescu said that he expects to catch up with these payments soon.