​Prime Minister Chuke welcomed on Wednesday the decision of the European Commission, taken a day ago, to allocate 10% of cohesion funds, i.e. 40 billion euros at the level of the whole EU, to support in the energy crisis, to ensure the work of capital, small and medium-sized businesses and to support for vulnerable citizens.

Minister of Investments and European Projects, Marcel Bolos, who was present at the government meeting, said that Romania will receive 2.2 billion euros out of a total of 40 billion euros and spoke about the measures that could be provided.

Bolosh said that the money can be used to support vulnerable households in the energy crisis, including for compensating energy prices. The second possible measure concerns working capital grants, which will be provided to SMEs under the model of pandemic grants, and the third measure is related to employment and job creation.

Prime Minister Chuke also stated that all these measures will be transferred to a technical procedure that will be established at the inter-ministerial level, possibly within 2 weeks, after the authorities see other details established at the level of the European Commission.

New proposals in Brussels to combat high energy prices and ensure security of supply

The European Commission has proposed a new emergency regulation to combat high gas prices in the EU and ensure security of supply this winter.

This will be achieved through joint gas purchases, price capping mechanisms on the TTF gas exchange, new measures for transparent infrastructure use and solidarity among member states, as well as through ongoing efforts to reduce gas demand. The regulation contains the following four main elements:

• Aggregating demand and joint gas purchases at EU level to negotiate better prices and reduce the risk of member states undercutting other member states’ offers on the global market, while ensuring security of supply for the entire EU;
• Continuation of work on the creation of a new reference price for LNG until March 2023; and, in the short term, propose a price adjustment mechanism to establish a dynamic price cap on TTF gas exchange transactions, as well as a collar or time band to prevent extremely sudden price increases in derivatives markets;
• Rules on implicit solidarity between Member States in the event of supply shortages, extending solidarity obligations to Member States not directly connected to the pipeline, also involving States with LNG capacity; and a proposal to establish a gas allocation mechanism for Member States affected by a gas supply emergency, at regional or Union level.

Combined with already agreed measures to reduce gas and electricity demand, gas storage and redistribute excess profits from the energy sector, these new measures will improve stability in European natural gas markets this winter and beyond.

These measures will also contribute to further easing the price pressures felt by citizens and industry in Europe, while ensuring security of supply and the functioning of the internal market. The Commission will continue its work in other areas, including a review of the Temporary Framework for State Aid during the crisis later this month, as well as further development of ways to limit the impact of high gas prices on electricity prices.

In addition, the Commission will carry out a needs assessment in the context of REPowerEU to accelerate the transition to clean energy and avoid fragmentation of the single market, with a view to making proposals to increase the EU’s financial capacity for REPowerEU. The Commission also proposes a flexible and targeted use of cohesion policy funds to tackle the impact of the current energy crisis on citizens and businesses, using up to 10% of the total national allocation for the period 2014-2020, amounting to almost €40 billion. .

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