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About 400 trade unionists from aluminium smelter Alro Slatina and other companies in Slatina and throughout the country staged today a protest in front of the Olt County Prefecture pressing for the "salvage of the Romanian industry", badly hit by the energy and gas crisis.
The protesters also called for the rooting out of the mafia-style influence in the energy sector, pointing out that the rising energy fees hurt both large industrial and household consumers.
The union members said that at a meeting during the day with Energy Minister Virgil Popescu they asked the government to implement measures to ensure the long-term predictability of the energy prices for industrial consumers.
"It was an official meeting with three unions, the Alro Trade Union, the Aluminum Processing Trade Union and the Alro Product Trade Union. The Minister told us that the legal framework allowing large energy consumers to directly conclude contracts with Romanian energy producers - which is what we are asking for - was published in the Official Journal in December. We learned about that just today. The producer is required to sell at least 40 percent of the production to the big industrial consumers. Now it's for the company management to discuss with the producer, we, the trade unions are not competent for this. Minister Virgil Popescu also said that he arranged the direct conclusion of contracts with suppliers in Serbia and Bulgaria, in the spirit of the law," said one of the Alro union leaders, Ioan Popa.
Trade unionists from the Galati steel plant and TMK Slatina and Resita, as well as representatives of Cartel Alfa affiliated unions also participated in the protest rally, with one of the major complaints envisaging the problems on the natural gas market that affect large consumers, such as fertilizer maker Azomures.
"Other large energy consuming companies in Romania encounter the same problems as you, and if you have issues today, the other companies may come against the same problems tomorrow. The energy price doesn't affect just you, there are companies that have shut down and sent their employees home," said Metarom representative Danut Onica.
Prefect Florin Homorean and Deputy Prefect Cosmin Floreanu went among the protesters, assuring them that their problems have been brought to the attention of the government which is looking to identify legal solutions to support the Romanian economic environment amid the energy crisis. The Prefect also mentioned that in October last year Alro Slatina received a state aid of RON 293 million for the energy consumed in 2020 and 2021.
