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Four employers' confederations and five union confederations have requested the head of Government, on Monday, to cap electricity and gas prices to their value of December 2020, for a period of at least one year, according to a press release sent by the National Council of Small and Medium Private Enterprises of Romania (CNIPMMR), one of the employers' organizations that signed the appeal.
"We are requesting for an emergency procedure, in accordance with Competition Law (Law 21/1996, art. 4) to limit electricity and gas prices to the value of December 2020, for at least one year (Law states possibility of extending to up to three years)," the open letter to the PM mentions.
The document is signed on behalf of employers, by the National Council of Small and Medium Private Enterprises of Romania (CNIPMMR), the Employers Confederation in Industry, Agriculture and Services in Romania (CONPIROM), the Romanian National Employers' Association, the General Union of Industrialists in Romania, and from the unions, by the "Cartel Alfa" National Union Confederation, the National Confederation of Romanian Free Unions - Fratia, the Confederation of Democratic Unions in Romania (CSDR), the Meridian National Union Confederation and the National Trade Union Bloc (BNS).
According to the press release, the signing organizations are highlighting that the price increases in Romania are exceeding global energy prices by a lot.
The signing organizations consider that the situation is because of the following factors: liberalization of energy markets (gas and electricity) in Romania at the same time with the problems generated by the pandemic crisis, which in turn generated an international energy crisis; the lack of all pieces of legislation of regulating liberalization, for both the citizens, and for the economic environment; the lack of preventively-enforced control mechanisms.
"We are also requesting the creation of a national Task Force which will come with medium- and long-term solutions within a month at most, to ensure Romania's energy security, and these solutions to materialize in a pact assumed by all political forces and social partners!" the press release reads.
