Romanian Parliament appoints new president at energy regulator

Romania’s Parliament voted yesterday the new management of the energy regulator ANRE. Social Democratic MP Dumitru Chirita was appointed ANRE president and Zoltan Nagy-Bege was appointed vice president, reports local News.ro. The Parliament also voted two new members in the ANRE regulation committee, namely Gheorghe Gabriel Gheorghe, a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE), and PSD’s Corina Sulger. Opposition parties PNL and USR accused the politicization of ANRE during the debate in the Parliament, which was a tense one. ANRE is a very important institution as it sets the prices for the electricity and natural gas sold to the population. It also sets the energy transport and distribution fees and monitors the investments made by companies in these sectors. ANRE was recently criticized by PSD leader Liviu Dragnea for announcing electricity and gas price increases starting October 1 this year. The regulator then decided to postpone the price increases. The Parliament has also set up a special committee to analyze ANRE’s activity in recent years. The committee will hear the regulator’s former managers and representatives of local energy companies about price fluctuations on the energy market this year. editor@romania-insider.com