Virgil Popescu announced today the extremely important measures that the European Union is currently discussing for hundreds of millions of Europeans, and which will bring extremely important changes in terms of electricity, but also natural gas, whose prices have grown substantially.
Virgil Popescu presents below some of the measures discussed during a meeting that took place today with his counterparts from many European Union states, the aim being to reduce the impact of the price increase generated by the war in Ukraine.
"Today, September 9, 2022, I participated in the Extraordinary meeting of the Energy Council, organized in Brussels, during which I had an exchange of views with my counterparts and with representatives of the European Commission on the high energy prices as well as preparations for the winter.
In the context of recent developments on the electricity market, as well as in the context of Russia's continued aggression against Ukraine, it is necessary to act for the adoption of a set of measures that will allow the stabilization of the market and the decrease of the price paid by consumers.
The European Commission is currently working on a set of measures to mitigate high energy prices that will materialize in a legislative proposal in the second part of September. In the short term, the European Commission aims at the following measures: (i) reduction of electricity consumption at European level through voluntary and mandatory mechanisms for peak consumption hours; (ii) capture of additional revenues obtained by electricity producers above a certain ceiling to be established; (iii) solidarity contribution from companies in the fossil fuel sector; (iv) increasing liquidity in energy markets; (v) reduction of natural gas prices, with particular emphasis on capping the price of natural gas imported from Russia.
In previous meetings, Romania supported the need to adopt measures at the community level to decouple the price of electricity from that of natural gas, which currently sets the closing price of the market. It is important that a proposal from the European Commission be issued in this regard as soon as possible.
Regarding short-term intervention measures, Romania supports a fair approach towards all member states. Capping the price of natural gas at the EU level, including that imported from Russia, is supported by several member states, including Romania, and could significantly contribute to reducing the volatility of the European market."
