The draft law that defines the vulnerable consumer of energy will be approved as soon as possible, and the people who really need it will be subsidized, said the Minister of Energy, Virgil Popescu.
“The vulnerable consumer had to be defined ahead of time and today I had a discussion with Minister Turcan (Minister of Labor, Raluca Turcan), and tomorrow she will send me the bill. I believe that after the discussions it will be approved soon. ( …) I haven’t seen it yet, my colleagues have been in charge of the state secretaries, with those from Labor, with those from ANRE, they have dealt with the Intergovernmental Committee, I don’t know it exactly, but it is based on the same principle: the vulnerable consumer will be subsidized, people will pay less, those who really need a subsidy,” specified Virgil Popescu, at Digi 24.
Asked why the Ministry of Energy did not intervene in the dispute with the National Regulatory Authority (ANRE) regarding the contracts that consumers must conclude with the liberalization of electricity prices, Popescu answered that “the liberalization of this price and market rules are made by ANRE, the ministry does not do them.”
“Normally the liberalization of this price and the rules on the market are done by ANRE, not by the ministry, but if we see that these things are getting stuck and we see that ANRE says that it cannot take this decision, that the law would not allow them, which I think makes sense – to offer all regulated customers the price of the supplier they have a contract with, the best price of the supplier – we change the law. The legislative change of the electricity law is the attribute of the government. We, as Ministry of Energy, can initiate a draft GEO, to introduce it in the Government, so that by law we establish this: at liberalization the first price you offer to your client is the lowest price in the competitive market, after which obviously the man can choose no longer pressed by time, it is no longer pressed from January 31, March 31, maybe during 2021 at any time to change its supplier, but to know that the best offer has reached the house customer,” explained Virgil Popescu, quoted by Agerpres.