Fuel prices in Romania are 3-5% lower than the European average, said on Monday the president of the Competition Council, Bogdan Chiriţoiu.

He specified that these are the prices charged by Romanian companies without taxes.

“We look at the data provided by Eurostat. We compare prices without taxes, so the prices charged by Romanian companies without state contribution, without taxes, we compare these prices with the European average. A few years ago we were at average and above average, at the moment we are 3-5% below the European average. So from this point of view it does not seem to be worse in Romania than in the rest of the European countries. Otherwise, of course, we carried out the respective controls together or we participated in the controls of ANPC and ANAF. ANPC has a number of specific problems at some gas stations. They presented their results, we look at the whole, at what the companies are doing, but we are not looking at a gas station, but at the behavior of the companies. I don’t have now a result I can communicate… We’re currently monitoring the market, we’re collecting data, we haven’t applied any sanctions,” said Bogdan Chiriţoiu, at the exit from the hearings that took place in the Economic Commission for industries and services in the Senate.

According to the head of the competition authority, we should not compare the situation in the pandemic, when prices were much lower, because the barrel of oil stood at $20, and now it is at $110, according to Agerpres.

“They’ve grown a lot in the 1,000 or so gas stations, and not the same amount. Let’s remember – I know I had discussions with some of you at that time, yes, it was evening, and I said let’s wait until morning, we have the fuel price monitor, let’s see if this situation in Bihor is a general situation in the country or is it something punctual. And in the morning we saw that it was the gas station in Bihor and two more. The rest had grown much smaller. That is, we are not talking about 8 to 11 lei, as Bihor grew, but at 8 – 8.4 lei. The big chains had increases of less than one lei, of 0.4 lei,” said Chiriţoiu, when asked about the situation of fuel prices.

According to him, there is an instability in the market and “we cannot pretend that there is no economic crisis exacerbated by the war in the area.”