The government included in Thursday’s meeting, on the agenda, the draft law on establishing social protection measures for vulnerable energy consumers. Compared to the option discussed in the first reading by the Government in January, the great novelty is that the Vulnerable Consumer Law will enter into force only from September 1, 2022 and not from September this year, as originally expected, writes Profit.ro.

Explanation of the Executive – administrative training is needed from town halls, energy and gas suppliers and the National Agency for Payments and Social Inspection. Thus, the new subsidies will be granted only from the winter season 2022-2023, until then the current ones remain in force.

Another change is that the level of income up to which heating aid is granted, the reference value according to the type of heating, as well as the value of the energy supplement, will be updated annually at the discretion of the Government and not according to the evolution of the population’s income and the consumer price of these services, as provided in the initial version of the draft.

Vulnerable consumers will be divided into 4 categories: for income reasons, for reasons of age (retired), for health reasons (those who need electrical medical devices to stay alive or to maintain their health, have mental problems, locomotion, visual or hearing impairments) and due to the fact that they have households in isolated areas or informal settlements, far from public utility networks.

Vulnerable consumers for income reasons will be, according to the project, those with an average monthly net income of no more than 810 lei/person in the case of families and 1,445 lei in the case of single people.

The financial support measures will consist of aid for heating the house during the cold season and an energy supplement.