Romania negotiated in Brussels to postpone the deadline for closing coal mines and power plants

Romania negotiated this week in Brussels to obtain a postponement of the deadline for closing coal mines and power plants, scheduled for the end of this year. Energy Minister Bogdan Ivan announced on Friday that clarifications will be sent to the European Commission in an attempt to avoid penalties for non-compliance with commitments.

Romania, he added, set itself, five years ago, during the negotiation of the NRRP, the most aggressive decarbonization target in the entire European Union. The energy minister emphasized that Romania has collected approximately 2 billion euros from this milestone, but the gas-fired power plants and the projects that should have been built with the money received are only “on paper” at the moment.

Bogdan Ivan: The European Commission rightly said: Good people, we gave you the money...either give us the money back, if you want to keep the coal-fired power plants, or close them. We commissioned an independent study through TransElectrica, which showed that Romania faces four scenarios, the one in which we, if we were to close the coal-fired units at the Oltenia Energy Complex, would truly be at risk of blackout.

We came up with technical arguments, this study has over 6.000 pages. All that remains is to send a series of clarifications to the European Commission and I really hope that the arguments we brought will create the framework in which Romania will no longer have penalties for not closing on time and not respecting the commitments made and we will be able to continue to keep at least three units in operation and two other reserve units, out of the five that are currently part of this milestone.

Translated by: Radu Matei