New gas and electricity bills will be hard for household users to understand
From 1 April, gas and electricity bills issued to Romanian consumers will have much more details than before. According to the new mandatory European rules, bills will also contain information on costs, transport and energy supply. Laurențiu Urluescu, president of the Romanian Energy Suppliers Association, says this will make bills unnecessarily complicated. „There is a lot of information that we don’t know how useful it would be to all consumers. We believe that this information would be enough to be uploaded on the customer platform, so that it is not included in all bills. Why is that? Because we estimate that a three- to four-page bill, as it is now, will end up being somewhere between six and eight pages. The more information is given to domestic customers, the less they will understand and, moreover, they will find it strange, they will ask questions and think that something is wrong with the bill”, said Laurențiu Urluescu. Zoltan Nagy Bege, Vice President of the National Energy Regulatory Authority, told a press conference that efforts have been made to keep the first page of the bill in a simplified form, and the rest of the details appear in the annexes. „All those elements that appear as mandatory additional information in gas and electricity bills are not our inventions, they all appear in European directives. The European directive says they are mandatory to be included in the bill. We just made a selection and tried to simplify the first page of the bill,” said Zoltan Nagy Bege.
Prime Minister of Romania on protocol visit to Sweden
Romania’s Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă is on a visit to Sweden on Friday, the country that now holds the EU presidency. Prime minister Ciucă meets his Swedish counterpart Ulf Kristersson and the Speaker of the Stockholm Parliament Andreas Norlén. More than likely, the agenda will include the situation caused by the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine, the impact on the countries in the region, the expansion of the Schengen Area, the priorities of the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, as well as bilateral cooperation, which Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă recently described as very good. „Sweden was the first Scandinavian country to ratify the accession treaty of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union. Romania was also among the first countries to ratify the North Atlantic Alliance accession agreement”, Nicolae Ciucă stressed. Also on Friday, the Romanian Prime Minister will participate in a public conference on „Threats and opportunities in the Black Sea area”, which will also mark the end of his visit to the Kingdom of Sweden.
The strategic partnership between the United States and Romania is stronger than ever (Lloyd Austin)
The strategic partnership between the United States and Romania is stronger than ever, said US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday. Lloyd Austin made the statements after a meeting at the Pentagon with Romanian Defence Minister Angel Tîlvăr on Thursday. Defence Secretary Austin hailed the excellent relationship between the two militaries. Pentagon spokesman General Pat Ryder referred to the Austin-Tȋlvăr talks in Thursday’s press conference. „Defense Secretary Austin thanked Romania for hosting thousands of American and allied troops to defend NATO’s eastern flank and for Romania’s leadership role in the Black Sea region. The two leaders also welcomed the 30th anniversary of the state partnership between Romania and the Alabama National Guard. Secretary of Defense Austin looks forward to further meetings and opportunities to work with Romanian allies,” said Pat Ryder. The two officials condemned Russia’s „savage war against Ukraine”. At the same time, they affirmed their strong support for Ukraine. Defence Secretary Austin pointed to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a threat to regional security, while Romanian Defence Minister Tȋlvăr said Russian President, Vladimir Putin was the most significant and direct threat to European, Euro-Atlantic and regional security./mbaciu
Magda Baciu – RADOR
