Excerpt from the interview given for Bursa by Mr. Corneliu Bodea, CEO of Adrem and President of CRE

What does the European Green Deal represent for Romania’s economy?

The European Green Deal represents a huge opportunity for Romania to recover from technological progress, to digitize and innovate, that is, all these things that we have postponed in 20 years of lack of investment. We have not supported the field of research and development, which can be seen, at least at the level of the energy sector, in the fact that we have an obsolete national energy system, with low efficiency, we have polluting technologies, little automation and if we look only at energy consumption, at 8 million users we have only 2 million smart meters. So the Green Deal, through the very generous funds that the European Union makes available, we have the opportunity to level things off, but here are some important amendments.

First of all, we need a coherent, fair and transparent legislative framework that encourages investments, offering a certain predictability. Entrepreneurs in Romania have become accustomed to being crisis entrepreneurs, they act with great courage in an uncertain market, regulated by an unstable political environment in which governments succeed each other without a long-term vision behind it, a strategy, strategic objectives and an action plan to be assumed and taken over by them. The legislation is often dense and contradictory and does not provide an environment conducive to investments. This romantic period of entrepreneurship is over and in order to take the step forward, in the direction set by the European community, with clear medium and long-term objectives, we urgently need a well-thought-out regulatory framework that gives investors confidence.

Secondly, the question arises whether Romania will be able to secure the financing offered by the Green Deal, by advancing defined, real and plausible projects. Just as no investments have been made in any field for so long, neither has there been investment in the increase of human resources. We are witnessing a deprofessionalization of human capital, in general and including in energy, and in order to capitalize on the opportunities offered by the Green Deal, we need concrete projects, carried out and implemented by specialists who come up with feasibility studies, technical specifications, clear and serious projects. We are somewhat lucky with the pandemic that reversed the brain drain phenomenon and made many Romanians return home, but we should not rely on it. Investments in people are absolutely necessary if we want the money from the Green Deal and, in general, if we want to move towards progress.

What amounts do you think Romania can attract from the European funds for recovery and resilience and from the just transition fund for the energy sector?

Any equation has those variable or unknown elements. The argument is not how much it can attract Romania from the funding made available by the European Commission or other international institutions, but how it will do it. On a short list we have the sources of financing of the European Green Deal, we have specific mechanisms such as the one for a just transition, the recovery and resilience plan, including the Horizon 2020 programs (the future Horizon Europe) and many others. Since the pre-accession funding, Romania has never run out of money. What we have not succeeded in, however, is to attract these sources of financing to their full value and this is a completely different discussion.

There are many indicators that reveal the precarious training of institutional leaders who should focus on the modernization of large infrastructure and industry, on sustainable economic growth and on the general well-being of citizens. It is enough to look at the infringement procedures adopted against Romania to understand the disaster of the governments in the post-accession years and the colossal amounts unnecessarily drained from the public budget.

We, the representatives of the energy sector, are open to any dialogue with political decision-makers, we know the realities of the field, we look at the directions, strategies and plans of the member states, we are connected with the European institutions and, last but not least, we are directly interested in the evolution of the national energy sector in its complexity and interdependence with other areas of the economy. Within the CRE association we have created working groups with our members’ specialists, we develop and transmit opinions on the public consultations of the most relevant legislative changes and the regulatory framework, so we have the necessary technical support capacity.

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