Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan announced, on Thursday, after the Government meeting, the adoption of the draft emergency ordinance on the measures applicable to final household customers in the natural gas market during the period April 1, 2026 – March 31, 2027, a document that modifies the mechanism for capping gas prices for the population, but does not eliminate the capping, as most market players have repeatedly requested.
Investors contacted by Energynomics in recent weeks have been reluctant to provide details regarding the new measures, but have complained that the market is not being liberalized, as expected.
“The best case scenario is full and predictable liberalization starting in April 2027, without additional transitional distortions. Also, the current regulation means that industries subsidize the domestic market, which creates higher inflationary pressure. The Romanian gas market has already demonstrated that it can function competitively when regulatory signals are clear. The current liquidity problems are not structural; they are the consequence of successive emergency interventions. Therefore, the priority is regulatory predictability, not additional market engineering. If liberalization is postponed in stages beyond 2027, we are sure that uncertainty will persist, while forward trading will remain stifled,” an investor told us.
The new GEO aims to avoid price increases for the population and district heating systems in large cities.
“The most important document that was adopted today is the one related to maintaining gas prices for homes in Romania, so for households, from April of this year to April of next year,” the prime minister said.
“Next year, Romania will almost double its gas supply capacity; we will become independent and the best moment to liberalize the gas market, in order to avoid any kind of price increase shock, is the moment when the gas supply on the market will be sufficient,” Bolojan said.
The international context also contributed to this decision, the prime minister said.
“The second reason is related to economic and social predictability. One of the targets we have assumed is the lowering of the inflation rate and any price increase that comes in the energy area, for electricity, think about what happened last year, for example, for fuel, for gas, means a significant impact that has effects related to inflationary surges and our intention is to act in such a way that, in combination with the adjustment related to the deficit reduction, we are also in a situation where we reduce our inflation rate with significant effects on macro-economic stability and on economic recovery in the coming years”, Ilie Bolojan also declared.
He stated that the decision to extend the gas price cap was also taken because of the situation in the Middle East.
“The third reason is related to the situation we currently have in the Gulf area, where inevitably, due to the syncopes that occur in the supply of global markets with crude oil and gas, we are in a situation where even if the European Union or Romania are not very dependent on the supply in the area, however, due to the fact that prices on these gas and fuel markets, as you know, are inevitably formed at a global level, there are marginal effects on us as well and you see what increases there were on these markets due to aspects related to the disruption of supply, the emotional aspects that occur in such situations and where we can influence, where we can significantly influence things like the gas market, where we have a certain energy independence, it was normal to do so”, Ilie Bolojan also stated, quoted by News.ro.
In the same context of the measures in the energy sector, Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan announced that the Government is also preparing a plan to reduce electricity prices, which should be presented by the end of March, Digi24 notes.
“We have a plan that we discussed with the minister that we will announce by the end of March, which aims to reduce prices in the electricity sector. This decrease cannot be done overnight, but there are several important directions that we have discussed and that we will work on in such a way that we can have effects starting this year,” said Bolojan. Among the measures envisaged are the unlocking of network capacities, to allow new investments in energy production, but also the increase in storage capacities, which could theoretically reduce high prices during peak hours.
