The Ministry of Energy will propose to abolish, through an emergency resolution, the “solar tax” for consumers, Sebastien Bourduilla, the responsible minister, said on Monday. This is after the European Commission replied that each country decides for itself whether to introduce this tax or not.

• Read also “Sun tax” – an initiative that the Government takes, but still says that it will not be applied / What is known so far

“The Ministry of Energy supports the cancellation of the sun tax. In addition, we also have an official response from the European Commission, which allows us to cancel this article,” Burduya said.

According to him, the European Commission stated that this provision is of the “may” type, that is, each country decides for itself whether to implement it or not.

“We will cancel it with an emergency order,” Burduzha added.

History of solar tax:

• The emergency decree allows ANRE to charge consumers, starting on December 1, 2026, if their capacity exceeds 8% of the total energy production capacity in Romania.
• Two years ago, when the resolution was adopted, the Government clarified that it did not intend to apply it, but rather it was about the adoption of a European directive.
• Now the prosumer association has brought the solar tax debate back into the public domain, and Energy Minister Sebastien Bourduilla said a month ago that he would cancel it if he received an answer from the European Commission that there was no risk of a breach.

“Solar tax” means the introduction of a tax on own consumption of electricity, that is, energy produced by consumers and consumed by them for their needs.

Briefly about what the legislation says:

• GEO 163/2022 states in article 21, paragraph 3: the bodies of the central public administration and ANRE may apply non-discriminatory and proportional taxes and tariffs to consumers, starting from December 1, 2026, if the capacity installed in prosumer power plants exceeds 8% of the total installed power
• This fee may be applied following a cost-benefit analysis carried out by ANRE.

Two years ago, when the decree appeared, public opinion was outraged that the authorities wanted to charge people for using the sun to produce energy for their own consumption, hence the name “solar tax”.

At the time, the government explained that this was in fact the adoption of a European directive, which states that states have the right to introduce this tax to limit the risk of imbalance in the network, but there is no intention for Romania to charge this type of fee to consumers.

A month ago, this topic was raised in the public space by the Association of Consumers and Communities of Energy Resources (APCE), which asked the authorities to completely remove this paragraph from the law, so that there is no risk of introducing this tax.

Dan Pearson, president of APCE, said he has sent a letter to the European Commission to clarify whether there is a provision in European law that obliges Romania to introduce this tax.

“The European Commission’s answer is clear and unequivocal: Article 21(3) is a ‘may’ clause, which means that transposition by Member States is optional. Therefore, the Commission does not consider the incomplete transposition of this type of provision to be a breach of the Directive,” says Pearson.

“Therefore, the introduction of the “sun tax” is not a measure of the European Union, but a decision of Romanian politicians. It is serious that the institutions responsible for the development of the legislative framework did not understand the meaning of this European directive,” added the representative of prosumers.

Currently, according to ANRE, there are more than 110,000 consumers in Romania with an installed capacity of around 1,400 MW, and this trend is increasing.

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