10 energy strategy scenarios for the elimination of the wise guys

The drafting of the country's energy strategy was one of the main themes debated during yesterday's Governmental coalition meeting. Thus, the PSD - PD-L coalition is considering 10 energy strategy scenarios, with the proper solution set to be chosen by the end of June or early July, Antena 3 reports. According to Deputy Prime Minister Dan Nica, the new energy security strategy seeks, among other things, to lower the price of the energy bill and to eliminate the "wise guys" from the system.

'We seek to lower the consumer's bill because the Romanians know less about energy than the wise guys do, the latter being those that buy the energy very cheaply and sell it at a very high price,' Dan Nica stated. He announced that the price drop will exceed the 5 per cent drop currently forecast in the case of both electricity and natural gas. The Deputy Prime Minister hinted that the number of energy agencies could be cut back.

'While now there are 10 energy entities, eventually only two or three will remain. The price cuts stem only from there, from the elimination of bureaucratic structures,' Dan Nica explained. According to the Minister, the agencies that will be set up will have under their control the structures that deal with energy produced from coal, with hydro-energy and with nuclear energy.

Strategy instead of rain

Also yesterday Dan Nica showed that efforts are also channeled towards drafting a strategy on irrigation, considering that the meteorological forecasts point to a drought that will affect the crops this summer. According to Mediafax, the leaders of the coalition have decided that Agriculture Minister Ilie Sarbu will present on Wednesday during the Government meeting an emergency strategy that would provision the extension of the irrigation systems. 'When starting his term at the helm of the Ministry Ilie Sarbu found 60,000 hectares that had irrigation works, and now we have reached a figure of 560,000 hectares. That surface is insufficient because a very serious drought is forecast and we will need supplementary measures if this forecast comes to be,' Nica said.

'First house' with minimum interest rates

The leaders of the coalition also talked about the 'First house' program in order to try to identify the supplementary measures needed so that the ones that resort to that program would benefit from interest rates at the smallest possible level. 'Let's see how the banks will also get into this program. There is the need for a cut in the interest rate, not a cut of just several percentage points, we're talking about a real cut in that rate,' Dan Nica underlined.

Constantin Nita, the Minister for SMEs, will hold today a public talk with the factors interested in this program. Last week Prime Minister Emil Boc announced that the Government will guarantee the mortgage loans of persons that want to buy their first house. The maximum value that can be guaranteed stands at EUR 60,000. The real-estate agents consider that such a measure will somewhat ease the effects of the real-estate crisis. As a matter of fact, the economic crisis and the Parliamentary agenda were included in the talks that the PD-L MPs had with President Traian Basescu last evening.

Coalition meets to settle PSD - PD-L disagreements

At the end of the coalition meeting, Marian Vanghelie, the President of PSD Bucharest, announced that the leaders of the coalition are to meet again on Tuesday in order to settle the disagreements that PSD and PD-L had over the appointments at the level of national and decentralized institutions. 'There are some things that are not very clear and if I don't understand something very well I'm not at ease,' Vanghelie said. He added that he is unable to understand the backstage games. 'I am an upright person and when I get up in the morning I know what I have to do,' the President of PSD Bucharest added, informing PD-L leader Adriean Videanu that he hopes things will be clarified.

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