Energy minister Sebastian Burduja on Wednesday said that he supports the steps taken by Greece, which wants to form a common front with Romania and Bulgaria regarding energy prices, and emphasised that the European market should be connected and Romanians should have access to cheaper energy.

„I support such an approach, and I also said it publicly. If we are all in a single European market, we must see it behave as a single market should. If energy is produced cheaper in Western Europe and we can call on such imports, then the market should be connected, so Romanians should also benefit from cheaper energy. So, if we look at that map often invoked in the public space, and we see that on the eastern flank of the European Union the prices paid are generally higher from Poland to Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, even Serbia, Greece, this is because there are often interconnection problems, there are maintenance works,” Sebastian Burduja told a press conference.

He specified that he discussed, including on Wednesday, with the „Hungarian neighbours”, who „compensated certain technical aspects on an interconnection with Serbia, giving way to an interconnection with Romania”.

„So, there are adjustments being made, but as long as the market is not working optimally, I think it is Romania’s duty to say this in Brussels, and the European Union’s duty to find solutions. I know you are probably thinking that there is an additional demand from the part of Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova for the energy on this eastern flank. We, of course, also have interconnections with the Republic of Moldova. The amount of energy requested so far has not been exceptional. We helped every time, but under commercial conditions, both with emergency energy and export energy, when they requested it and paid the correct market price,” the minister added.

Greece is launching an initiative to form a common front with the Balkan countries of the European Union regarding electricity prices, as their dramatic rise, first observed in southeastern Europe in July, appears to be more than temporary, tending to become permanent, while the effects cannot be combated by government subsidies, wrote the Greek publication Kathimerini on Tuesday.

AGERPRES