Eurofound's EU PolicyWatch collates information on the responses of government and social partners to the COVID-19 crisis, the war in Ukraine, rising inflation, as well as gathering examples of company practices aimed at mitigating the social and economic impacts.
Factsheet for measure RO-2023-5/3189 – Updated – measures in Romania
Country | Romania , applies nationwide |
Time period | Temporary, 01 February 2023 – 31 March 2024 |
Context | War in Ukraine |
Type | Legislations or other statutory regulations |
Category |
Responses to inflation
– Support for energy bills |
Author | Victoria Stoiciu, Nicoleta Voicu (Association Center for Public Innovation) and Eurofound |
Measure added | 02 June 2023 (updated 07 November 2023) |
Considering the increase in the price of energy, the government designed a measure to help people pay their energy bills. Prices for electricity have increased over 600% and prices for natural gas have increased over 535%. Considering that 30% of the budget of a household with an average monthly income per family member of RON 2,000 (€400) per member per month is allocated for paying the energy bills, the government created a measure to ensure that vulnerable people and households can manage the energy bills.
The measure is addressing the following categories:
The financial aid offered in this the energy card is equal to RON 1,400 (€280) per person in a vulnerable household and is paid in two allotments, as it follows: a first allotment of RON 700 (€140) starting with February 2023 and a second allotment of RON 700 (€140) paid starting with September 2023.
The following updates to this measure have been made after it came into effect.
02 November 2023 |
The validity period of energy cards for vulnerable people has been extended from 31 December 2023 to 31 March 2024. |
Between 20 February 2023 and 25 May 2023, 3 million payments were made through the energy card. The total value of the amounts paid reaching RON 678 million (€135 million). Of the total amount of payments, 145,000 of them, worth over RON 30 million (€6 million), were made through the online platform, and for firewood, energy cards were used by over 92,000 beneficiaries. The amount paid, in cash, to compensate the cost of firewood is RON 62.4 million (€12.5 million). More than 4 million people are expected to benefit from energy cards, the total budget of the program being RON 2.8 billion (600,000 million).
Workers | Businesses | Citizens |
---|---|---|
Does not apply to workers | Does not apply to businesses |
Disabled
Pensioners People on social benefits People on low incomes |
Actors | Funding |
---|---|
National government
|
European Funds
|
Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:
Trade unions | Employers' organisations | |
---|---|---|
Role | Unknown | Unknown |
Form | Not applicable | Not applicable |
Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:
The involvement of social partners is not known.
No public positions or views have been expressed by social partners regarding the measure.
Citation
Eurofound (2023), Energy card for vulnerable people, measure RO-2023-5/3189 (measures in Romania), EU PolicyWatch, Dublin, https://static.eurofound.europa.eu/covid19db/cases/RO-2023-5_3189.html
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30 January 2023
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