The Parliamentary Commission on Economy, Budget and Finance on Thursday considered the draft law on amendments to the Law on the Oil Products Market and recommended the parliament to approve this document.
According to the press service of the parliament, this bill is aimed at eliminating the existing shortcomings in the current legislation, which give rise to risky situations. At the same time, the project retains the basic concept of the policy of setting prices for petroleum products by limiting them, but only in the part that relates to the retail sale of basic petroleum products. The authors of the bill, a group of deputies of the parliamentary faction of the Action and Solidarity Party (PAS), propose to clearly and unequivocally state in the law that the maximum retail prices for major petroleum products are set by the National Agency for Energy Regulation based on the Methodology for calculating and applying prices for petroleum products. Thus, the PAS deputies propose that the maximum retail prices for basic petroleum products of the standard type (gasoline COR 95 and diesel fuel) should be calculated and published daily on its website by NAER. According to the authors, as a result, the wholesale fuel market, as well as retail prices for liquefied gas and all other types of oil products, except for basic ones, will become free. At the same time, retail sale of other types of basic petroleum products, other than those for which the maximum prices have been set, will be allowed only on condition that standard types of products are sold at the same station. In these conditions, the state will provide the consumer with the necessary oil products at regulated, reasonable, transparent, non-discriminatory and easily comparable prices, observing the established quality parameters, and on the other hand, will provide them with the opportunity to freely choose alternative products. Also, in order to soften the conditions for obtaining a license, it is proposed to reduce the mandatory storage capacity that the importer must meet by 5 times, namely from 5 thousand to 1 thousand cubic meters. Herewith, another legislative initiative will be initiated to ensure the energy security of the state in terms of providing oil products in crisis situations. Another provision of the amendments proposed by the PAS deputies to the Law on the Oil Products Market concerns the elimination of the need to own a capital of at least 8 million lei, since, according to the authors of the document, this minimum amount prevents many new economic agents from entering the market. The bill stipulates that NAER can adjust the commercial margin in case of the occurrence of factors that could not have been foreseen at the time of the previous approval, and that the regulator can intervene in the structure of the margin that does not exceed 10% of the average actually registered by the operators. PAS MPs believe that their proposed amendments to the Petroleum Market Law will benefit all parties involved, consumers, operators and the regulator, and will not require additional costs to be implemented. The draft law on amendments to the Law on the Petroleum Products Market was developed with the aim of amending some of the provisions introduced by the Law on amendments and additions to the Law on the Petroleum Products Market, this legislative initiative of the independent deputy Alexandru Oleinic from the 10th parliament was adopted on April 9, 2021.//12.08.2021 — InfoMarket.
