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Turning OPCOM (Romanian Electricity and Gas Market Operator) into a single operator of the en-gros centralised natural gas and electricity markets would be a mistake, because nothing good is there for the Romanians invoices from a politically-controlled monopoly, says Andreea Paul, chairwoman of the INACO - Initiative for Competitiveness, in a release sent to AGERPRES.
Paul stresses that an important amendment to the law is "on the turntable" at the Parliament, considering the 15 September 2017 deadline of the final report (after it has been sent back from the plenary sitting to the Industries Committee at the end of the previous parliamentary session, namely the draft law 110/2017 for the adoption of OUG no. 64/2016, that is completing the Electricity and Natural Gas Law no. 123/2012.
"The OUG (Government Emergency Ordinance, ed. n.) was necessary due to an infringement by the European Union Romania had to manage following a wrongfully-tailored legislation. Problem is that in the adoption law of this OUG, dangerous amendments were slipped with intention proposing to alter the gas market in Romania, in the sense to building an easily politicized monopoly and that will ruin the current competition. (...) What amazes me is that nobody has yet publicly signaled the lies in the argumentation of the most dangerous amendment of the 20 amendments admitted to the draft law Plx 110/2017, that would bring to the enactment of the first monopolization of an activity field in Romania that is currently open to competition — currently with two operators certified by the ANRE (national energy regulator): BRM — Romanian Commodities Exchange, with a majority private capital, and OPCOM — Transelectrica, with a majority state capital," Adreea Paul says.
According to INACO chairwoman, if this amendment is passed, the transactions unfolded at the BRM (67 percent of the natural gas market) will be actually nationalised.
"The INACO think-tank — Initiative for Competitiveness demands publicly the cutting off of disinformation in the parliamentary specialty committees, professional researches of opportunity and feasibility at any legislative amendment, their righteous justification, in accordance with the Romanians interests and the European good practice. To favour the state capital against the private one is non-competitive and anti-competitive, in contradiction with the European practice," the release says.
"Competition is the guarantee of dropping the operating price, alongside the ruling out of the suspicion of political or group meddling in the sensitive field of the prices' making and adjudication of contracts. And this is all the more important in a strategic, of public interest filed as the gas market," concluded Andreea Paul.
