The president of the Senate, liberal Florin Cîţu, said on Tuesday that the price cap will immediately lead to shortages, mentioning that no producer will want to invest in an industry where prices are capped, and Romania is not going in this direction.
“There was also this discussion with the cap in 2020, in the midst of the crisis. Then, again, there was talk of rising prices. This summer, everyone was crying for the pity of Romanian producers who threw away their products because they had very low prices. Now prices are very high. The price is best determined by supply and demand. Consumers meet with producers and there the price is determined, not by state intervention. Any interference in the market comes with very high costs. I understand the energy market, there was a compromise, because it was not a market that worked really well. But the food products, I think, work very well,” said Cîţu, when asked about the possibility of capping the price of food, according to Agerpres.
He added, asked about the rise in fuel prices, that “capping means immediate shortages.”
“There’s a lot of talk in the public space, but I repeat, we have to think that capping means immediate shortages. No one, no producer will want to invest in an industry where prices are capped. We don’t have to throw away these topics anymore in the public space, without thinking about the consequences. The idea is that capping leads to shortages, we have seen countries trying this, kept it for a month and then removed it, because it is never a measure. The energy market, gas and electricity prices – is another market. And there we have to be very careful, because there are companies that want to invest in Romania, in this field. If we say that we will cap the prices, we will intervene in the market, nobody wants to put their money in a sector that is controlled by the Government,” Cîţu explained.
The PNL leader claimed that Romania is not going in this direction of capping prices.
“If we believe that there is an enlightened mind, standing somewhere with a pen and a pencil, and saying that this price is the best, and this is the best, and that this is how the market is regulated, we are sorely mistaken. If, somehow, someone thinks that they can determine the price for each market, because they know better the investment, consumption, saving decisions, we are sorely mistaken. This has been tried in Russia and Romania and it has been seen that the experiment did not work. We will not go in the this direction. Romania will not go in that direction. Romania has advanced in recent years, precisely because it has embraced the market economy and we will go in this direction,” added Cîţu.
Asked about measures for the price of fuel, Cîţu said: “The price of fuel also increased last year and then decreased. That’s what prices in the economy do. They increase, decrease, that’s what prices do. In the end, in an economy, the price dynamics are normal.”
He said that with regard to energy prices, the Executive must come up with solutions, and the decision will be taken in the governing coalition, mentioning that there will be a meeting with the Government on Wednesday.