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Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Ludovic Orban said on Tuesday that moving forward Romania will have resources that it must use "with utmost intelligence" for all energy projects that are necessary for its development.
"Moving forward, Romania will have resources that it must use with utmost intelligence for all the energy projects that are necessary for its development: from the resources under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), to the money that we can use from the Modernisation Fund as a percentage of CO2 certificates, which can be available to Romania under such modernisation projects," said Orban, at the Diplomatic Club.
Orban participated on Tuesday in the release of the third edition of the "Energy Security Barometer" in Romania, an event organised by the Ion I. C. Bratianu Institute of Political Science and International Affairs of the Romanian Academy and the Laboratory for the Analysis of Information Warfare and Strategic Communication.
He pointed out that any resource will have to be used to speed up investment, to meet the requirements set out in the Green Deal, and on the other hand could provide energy efficient energy that can be sold at a competitive price.
Orban pointed out that, "with the adoption of the Green Deal at European level, we will have to improve our energy strategy and focus on carrying out vital energy projects, in order to meet the challenges posed by the Green Deal and the production structure, by the need for competitiveness in the Romanian economy, by other factors that we must take into account in establishing economic policy and, obviously, our allies."
Orban went on to say that regarding the construction of reactors 3 and 4 at the Cernavoda nuclear-power plant and the modernisation of reactor 1, "a memorandum has been negotiated with the United States of America and there is an agreement that passed the Romanian Parliament and that can be the basis for a restart of this extremely important project."
At the same time, Orban said that at European level there is "a great reluctance over natural gas."
"It took us seven months, for example, to obtain the agreement of the European Commission to be able to finance from European non-reimbursable funds the establishment of gas distributions. And finally our project was accepted with certain conditions related to smart grids, measurement systems, data transmission and digital systems."
The speaker also said that many of the projects and points in the government agenda, such as those on improving legislation to allow the exploitation of natural gas fields in the Black Sea or the expansion of gas networks so as to allow access to the network for as many households as possible, benefit from public support, according to the results of the Energy Barometer.
"We also followed very carefully the response related to the vulnerable consumer versus the small subsidy given to all. Of course, the subject is a bit more complicated, but there is preponderance in the use of resources to support vulnerable consumers. Unfortunately, in the case of steam for heating in Romania - and there is an extremely deep crisis can occur in the thermal energy system if no major investment is made in the near future - the subsidy system is still used for price differences, which practically subsidises Gcal for all consumers who they are networked, not making a distinction between those on low incomes and those on medium and high incomes," Orban said.
He also announced that the government has submitted a bill to support vulnerable consumers, which is being debated in Parliament, voicing conviction that "it will be adopted in a form that will be a useful tool for the protection of low-income people, on the other hand to allow the operation of all energy systems."
