How Can Romania Meet European Requirements in the Field of Energy?
How Can Romania Meet European Requirements in the Field of Energy?
Author(s): Corina MurafaSubject(s): Economy
Published by: Societatea Academică Română (SAR)
Keywords: liberalization; EU infringement; energy; OPCOM; Romania; transparency
Summary/Abstract: The Romanian energy market suffers from structural flaws, which pre-date the beginning of liberalization. Although the restructuring process by breaking-up vertical monopolies (damaging for competition and for competitiveness at the same time) started off relatively early - 1998 for electricity, 2000 for gas, uncompetitive commercial practices and damaging administrative decisions kept persisting. A brief diagnosis of how the Romanian electricity market runs shows that structural flaws still exist. Over 75% of wholesale electricity trade takes place over-the-counter (outside the specialized trading platform OPCOM), via so-called bilateral contracts, be they negotiated or regulated. In and by themselves, bilateral contracts are important for ensuring trade predictability for large industrial consumers. Although there is a specialized market for bilateral contracts inside OPCOM, only 8% of the entire electricity traded inside OPCOM is represented by this market segment.
Journal: Romanian Journal of Political Sciences
- Issue Year: 12/2012
- Issue No: 01
- Page Range: 134-151
- Page Count: 18
- Language: English
- Content File-PDF