The Romanian Government approved on Monday, December 30, the Memorandum on the aid of the Oltenia Energy Complex (CEO) with 1.2 billion lei through a issuance of treasury bonds, needed for the purchase of carbon certificates for 2019, a ministry statement posted on Facebook shows.
The Memorandum empowers the Ministry of Public Finance to give a principle opinion on the possibility of granting a loan from the Treasury in the amount of 1,200 million lei to the Oltenia Energy Complex, “in the form of a rescue aid, after having completed the steps provided by the applicable state aid legislation and after obtaining the authorizing Decision from the European Commission.”
Within 6 months of the grant receiving, the Oltenia Energy Complex must either repay the loan granted or submit a Restructuring Program that the Ministry of Economy, Energy and Business Environment will notify to the European Commission in order to obtain state aid for restructuring, upon approval by the European Commission.
At the same time, CEO will get a restructuring aid for a period of 5 years.
By the end of the first quarter of 2020, the mining company will have to develop, in collaboration with the EBRD and the EIB, a Development and Decarbonation Plan “in conjunction with the obligations and requirements established by the national and European regulations, including those resulting from the implementation of the new package of legislation regarding the internal market, adopted in 2019 and correlated with the National Integrated Energy – Climate Change Plan 2021-2030, as well as the Plan for restructuring the CEO’s activity, specifying the investment effort necessary to cover all the costs of this action (investments in the modernization respectively the replacement with new capacities, layoffs, professional reconversions, environmental protection works).”
At the same time, the Ministry undertakes the preparation “of a study of evaluation and impact of the plan of development and decarbonisation of the sector of electricity production on coal, with clear terms of diminution/ closure of the capacities on coal and replacement with less polluting capacities and with sizing the investment need, correlated with the existing financial instruments and applicable at European level to the Member States that have to manage the transition of the areas where coal extraction is the main element of economic development (for example, the Platform for the carboniferous regions in transition),” the Ministry’s post also shows.
