Moldovan premier says energy security government's priority

Chisinau, 23 February /MOLDPRES/ - Prime Minister Pavel Filip today had a meeting with a group of representatives of the Gas Natural Fenosa company – the biggest electric energy supplier of Moldova, led Managing Director of Regulated Business, Antoni Peris Mingot, the government’s communication and media relations department has reported.   

The dialogue was focused on the situation in the electric energy supply sector of Moldova. Thus, the sides considered ways of settling problems triggered by more factors, which caused, on the one hand, a demand by the electricity provider to increase the tariff, as a result of the Moldovan leu’s depreciation against the international currencies in the last years, and on the other hand, a financial pressure on the operator working in Moldova, RED (Electricity Distribution Network) Union Fenosa.

The prime minister said the energy security was a priority of the government, and the problems in this sector were on the agenda of the authorities’ work, in order to identify a viable solution in a shortest time possible. At the same time, Pavel Filip stressed that the cabinet spoke out for the transparency of the spending included in the energy’s tariff, so that the approved tariffs be justified and the end consumers know exactly the reasoning of the expenses for the supplied electric energy.  

The prime minister gave assurances that the cabinet was concerned about the settlement of the aforementioned problems and would make every effort, within its competence, to contribute to their settlement, taking into account the independence of the prices’ regulator in this field – National Energy Regulatory Agency.  

Also, the sides welcomed the fact that the Moldovan Economics Ministry and representatives of the Gas Natural Fenosa company agreed on signing a memorandum of understanding on starting a dialogue, in order to identify ways of recovering tariff deviations. In this context, Antoni Peris Mingot said the signing of the memorandum was a sign of the Moldovan government’s displaying intention to settle the problem amicably.     

(Editor A. Raileanu)