The possible merger between Hidroelectrica and the Oltenia Energy Complex (CEO), announced Monday by the authorities, was blamed by Virgil Popescu, deputy chairman of the Industries and Services Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, who says that the recovery of the shares of Fondul Proprietatea would cost over 1 billion euro.

Doru Vișan, secretary of state in the Ministry of Energy, said that the state must ensure the energy mix, and one variant considered is the merger between Hidroelectrica and the Oltenia Energy Complex, after repurchasing the packages owned by Fondul Proprietatea in the two companies.

“This merger has no economic logic, we are not talking about the signal you give to market investors … You cannot associate a profitable company with a company full of losses because you risk, according to all economic laws, to damage also the one that is profitable,” says Virgil Popescu, quoted by financialintelligence.ro.

“If the Romanian state has the money to redeem the shares of Fondul Proprietatea both at the CEO and at Hidroelectrica, I wonder why it does not use them to bring the Oltenia Energy Complex to environmental standards in such a way that the company does not need anymore to buy a large quantity of CO2 certificates. We are talking about an amount of over 1 billion euro for the redemption of the shares of the FP, better the Romanian state would invest this money, as a shareholder, in the CEO, than to give it to the FP and then look for other money for the modernization of the CEO to bring it to the environmental conditions that must also make it profitable.”