Competition Council contemplates overcharging energy suppliers, directing money to vulnerable consumers

The Competition Council has the high electricity and gas prices under scrutiny to see whether they are correct and if overcharging the suppliers would be necessary to offset the bills of vulnerable consumers, Competition Council president Bogdan Chiritoiu told AGERPRES on Friday.

"We received a request from the government and we are looking for any indication of supplier collusion, of willful bad faith in the application of the law, we are looking to see if the cumbersome enforcement of the subsidy law was deliberate. We have been scrutinizing the market for two years now, through various instruments. Now, at the request of the government, we have also asked for data sets to see how the law was applied, who has applied the offset scheme and when. This adds to what we already normally did," said Chiritoiu.

According to the current provisions of the law, the financial aid to consumers should come from overcharging the profits of energy producers, but the Competition Council contemplates whether overcharging suppliers isn't necessary as well.

"This overcharge will generate funds that we can use to protect vulnerable household and industrial consumers. This is because although production costs have not risen, energy prices have skyrocketed and producers are gaining without merit. It's not clear if the gain has gone entirely to producers, who also have forward contracts; intermediaries, traders, suppliers could also make money from here, and then maybe it makes sense to overcharge the entire chain, not just the producers, but the suppliers and traders as well. It's an idea we are considering at the moment," Chiritoiu said.

Regarding the proposal to cut VAT on energy, Chiritoiu said that this support measure would benefit all consumers, not just vulnerable ones.

He called on suppliers to cooperate with the state for the benefit of the customers, adding that the liberalization of the energy market since the beginning of the year is unrelated to the current price increases that have hit the entire Europe, mainly due to high gas prices after Gazprom reduced its deliveries to Europe.