Virgil Popescu officially announced the new emergency measures that were adopted by the Romanian Government to help people who have high energy and gas bills, the Minister of Energy talking about them below.
Virgil Popescu also says that these measures will not be applied retroactively, so that they are only applied starting from February 1, so that whatever happens until this date will not generate any protection for consumers in Romania.
"Today we approved the emergency ordinance by which, starting from February 1, certain changes are made to help people. Practically, for all household consumers, for all Romanians who own a home, the ceiling drops from 1 leu per kW to 80 money per kW for electricity and from 37 money per kW to 31 money per kW, regardless of how much they consume.
You saw, the compensation remains 0,291 lei for electricity, it increases from 33 to 40%, a figure, practically a discount. Computer applications automatically have this and the fact that the ceiling drops from 1 leu to 0,8 does not seem to me to be something difficult to do.
Basically, we modify some constants, which they have in computer applications, and we thought in such a way that we would come to the rescue. I will be meeting with all the suppliers in the near future to make sure there are no more problems.
I will also ask the people from ANRE to meet with the suppliers, precisely so that we don't have any more surprises, because we want the invoices that they will issue in the course of March, at the beginning of March, as per this ordinance February to be 100% correct and we want the January invoices to be 100% correct and the November and December invoice reversals and resets to happen.
Someone who consumed 500 kW, let's say, someone who consumed 500 kW before this ceiling was increased, paid one lei per kilowatt, so they paid 500 lei; now, if the ceiling is lowered, once it is 80 money and it is also applied... because it falls within the consumption range, that discount is also applied to it, it pays 68 money; 68 money multiplied by 500, pays somewhere around 300 or so lei. So, a drop from 500 to 300 or so lei for 500 kilowatts."
