Taxes levelled on energy and fuels reduce the competitiveness of the Romanian industry and generate additional pressures on the prices of consumer goods, according to an analysis on the impact of energy costs on the economy conducted by Chairman of the Smart Energy Association (AEI) Dumitru Chisalita.
"Europe is not poor in people, technology or capital. However, it is increasingly poor in cheap energy. And that is not a geological fatality, but the result of political decisions. By massively taxing fuel, electricity and gas, Romania, like many EU countries, has chosen to turn its own energy infrastructure into a budgetary and ideological cash cow. The result is an economy that breathes increasingly harder. While the United States, the Middle East and much of Asia supply industries with cheap and stable energy, Europe has put itself in a structural handicap. Excise duties, VAT and decarbonisation schemes push the price of energy to levels that make industrial production uncompetitive. A steel or fertiliser plant cannot be green if it no longer exists. When energy becomes more expensive than labour, production leaves," said Chisalita.
According to him, energy represents between 20% and 50% of the costs of some basic industries, and the high taxation is reflected in both investments and final prices.
"When we tax it aggressively, we do not correct the market, but we drive away capital. Europe has already begun to see effects: massive relocations to the U.S., where gas is several times cheaper, industrial investment blocked, supply chains moved. But the cost is not only industrial. Taxes on diesel and gasoline are found in every bread, every apartment built, every product transported. It is a regressive tax: it hits harder on those who work physically, who commute, who heat modest homes. Under the pretext of the green transition, Europe has created a form of energy austerity that impoverishes the population and thins the middle class."
The AEI officials added that Romania lives with the illusion that it taxes drivers, but in reality it taxes bread.
"The excise duty on diesel is the least understood and the most destructive tax in the European economy. Because it does not strike a final product, but the movement of goods itself. And in a modern economy, everything moves wheat, milk, packaging, workers, parts, finished products. Every kilometre travelled by a lorry carries with it a hidden tax that infiltrates every price on the shelf."
He added that diesel does not fuel lorries, but inflation.
"In Romania, as in most countries in the European Union, diesel taxes are 4-6 times higher than in the United States. That is not a marginal difference. It is a change of economic regime. A lorry that travels 1,000 km in Europe pays the state about EUR 200 in fuel taxes alone. The same lorry in America pays less than EUR 40. The difference does not disappear. It is transferred directly to the price of every carton of milk, every loaf of bread and screw. Why food becomes expensive even when wheat is not. To follow the bread. The wheat is transported to the mill. The flour goes to the factory. The bread goes to the warehouse. From there to the supermarket. In every step there is a lorry. Every lorry means diesel. Each litre of diesel means excise duty. That is a form of structural inflation: it does not come from greed, it does not come from lack of supply, but from a tax system that artificially makes every move more expensive," the specialist added.
According to him, inflation in Romania is not monetary, but logistical, given that transport is taxed as a luxury.
"In a modern economy, productivity comes from: specialisation, large markets, rapid movement of goods. Romania does exactly the opposite: it penalises distance and energy. It penalises distribution. It penalises production away from the big cities. The result is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rates, because it is not a demand problem, but one of structural costs. The problem is not concern for the environment. The problem is that Romania, like most of EU countries, has chosen the purest method, making fuel and basic energy more expensive through rates and taxes, without using these funds to invest massively in cheap and clean production. It has turned the kilowatt and litre of fuel into fiscal instruments, not into strategic goods."
He argued that no great economic power in history was built on expensive energy.
"From the Industrial Revolution to the postwar American boom, prosperity has gone hand in hand with abundant and affordable energy. Romania, like many European countries, is now doing the opposite experiment, trying to remain rich by penalising energy consumption. It is a contradiction that cannot last. If this trajectory continues, Romania will not redress any economy, regardless of the recovery plans made. It will slowly slide into prolonged stagnation with less industry, more imports, more social tensions, less global relevance. Not a spectacular collapse, but a continuous erosion."
Thus, Romania does not have to choose between the planet and prosperity, but it must understand one simple thing: an economy cannot be green if it is first bankrupt, said Chisalita.
"Energy is not a vice to be taxed. It is the foundation on which everything is built. The U.S. subsidises mobility and energy. China subsidises mobility and energy. Romania and most EU countries tax them. Then they wonder why they export less, produce more expensive and lives on inflation. There is no prosperous economy with expensive energy and expensive haulage," according to the AEI specialist.
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