New support measures on electricity and gas to be applied for one year after April 1

The interministerial committee for energy has decided the new support measures to protect the population and the economy from the effects of the increase in energy and natural gas prices that will apply for a one-year period, Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca said on Thursday."We have decided on new measures to protect the population and the economy from the effects of rising energy and gas prices. These measures will be implemented for a year, guaranteeing the predictability and stability that citizens and the business need. Thus, in respect to electricity for household customers, we have established the following: the introduction of a social tariff of 0.68 lei / kw with VAT included for households with a monthly consumption of up to 100 kw. There are over 4 million households that fall into this type of consumption," said Ciuca at the Victoria Governmental Palace.He added that another 4 million households that have a monthly consumption of electricity between 100 and 300 kwh will benefit from a tariff of 0.80 lei / kwh including VAT."The impact of this support package is estimated at 3.62 billion lei," the prime minister explained.According to him, for non-household clients - SMEs, public institutions, hospitals, schools, kindergartens, places of worship, town halls, universities, NGOs, as well as other such institutions - there will be a single fee of one leu / kwh, with VAT included."The estimated impact for the support measures of these categories of beneficiaries is 5.54 billion lei," Ciuca said.The prime minister explained that state aid schemes will be applied to large energy consumers, which will reduce costs by up to 20%.In total, the estimated impact of the support measures for household and non-household consumers for electricity amounts to 9.16 billion lei by the end of this year, Nicolae Ciuca added."For natural gas, household customers who will have an annual consumption of up to 1,200 cubic meters will benefit from a tariff of 0.31 lei / kw. The estimated impact, 2.8 billion lei by the end of the year. For non-household consumers the cost of natural gas will be 0.37 lei / kw and here we refer to SMEs, (...) public institutions, hospitals, schools, kindergartens, places of worship, town halls, universities, NGOs and also similar institution, excluding the large consumers who will benefit from separate schemes. The estimated impact - 2.5 billion lei by the end of the year. The total estimated impact for the measures to support the payment of natural gas bills is 5.3 billion lei," said the prime minister.He added that, together, the measures for electricity and natural gas will have an estimated total impact of almost 14.5 billion lei by the end of this year.According to Prime Minister Ciuca, the implementation of the new measures announced after April 1 will allow the "sustainable" continuation of the state's efforts to provide protection to the population and the business environment, which, for a year, will have a price stability while respecting the free market.