Basescu notifies the CC in relation to the EGO 57/2013 on GCs support scheme

When everything was supposed to get back to normal in the green energy market and the law approving the Emergency Governement Ordinance no. 57/2013 be eventually promulgated after both chambers of the Romanian Parliament rejected the re-examination call President Traian Basescu made, he requested the Constitutional Court (CC) to declare it unconstitutional. The grounds are the same as when he asked the Parliament to review it: it does not comply with the requirements of the EU Commission with respect to the prior informing needed before implementing such changes.

Thereby, Basescu sent yesterday a notification to the CC, asking to announce this law as unconstitutional in order to avoid any infringement procedures against Romania due to breaking the Article 108, paragraph (3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union which stipulates that ‘The Commission shall be informed, in sufficient time to enable it to submit its comments, of any plans to grant or alter aid.’

Last June, the EU Commission warned that no informing has been received before issuing the EOG, however, the Department of Energy inside the Ministry of Economy sent a notification in this respect only two months later, in August. Subsequently, in early-October 2013, the EU Commission established that it cannot be considered a prior notification and asked the Romanian Government to proceed accordingly and provide all the information and documentation needed with the respect to the measures that must be notified.

The law in question sustains the temporary reduction until 2017 and 2018, respectively of the quota of green certificates allocated to green energy producers (1 GC/MW for new small hydropower, 2 GCs/MW for solar plants – to be recovered as from April 1, 2017, as well as 1GC/MW for wind power plants – effective until December 31, 2017) as stipulated by the EOG, unlike it, establishing that under its provisions are only the producers authorized until December 31, 2013.