Large energy consumers receive aid of 130 mln euros from state for paying bills

The Ministry of Energy paid over 130 million euros to large energy consumers, an amount related to last year's state aid scheme for paying bills, according to a ministry's release issued on Wednesday for AGERPRES.

"As I said before, with this financial aid we support 15 branches of the Romanian industry. We are talking about producers who have directly and horizontally employed employees of over 100,000 employees. At the same time, this scheme avoids the risk of relocation of companies that contribute to I would like to remind you that we offer support not only to large energy consumers, but also to SMEs, but also to domestic consumers, as the measures are provided for in Law No. 259/2021. We are discussing with the European Commission to extent the state aid scheme provided by Emergency Ordinance No. 81 to continue to support energy-intensive consumers," Minister of Energy Virgil Popescu said.

The amount paid in 2021 in the form of state aid for 2020 is 637.6 million lei, the equivalent of 131.8 million euros at the average reference rate for 2020 of 4.8371 lei/euro;

The total number of companies that benefited from state aid according to Emergency Ordinance no. 81/2019 is 33, all with 100% private capital, of which 12 limited liability companies and 21 joint stock companies.