Vulnerable consumers will be divided into four categories: for income reasons, for reasons of age (retirees), for health reasons and due to the fact that they have households in isolated areas or informal settlements, far from public utility networks.
The Romanian Government decided to postpone the Vulnerable Consumer Law, and now it will come into force on 1 September 2022 instead of 1 September 2021 as its was originally planned. The reason behind the postponement is the need for administrative training of town halls, energy and gas suppliers and the National Agency for Payments and Social Inspection. Thus, the new subsidies will be granted only from the winter season 2022-2023, until then the current ones remain in force.
Another change is that the level of income up to which heating aid is granted, the reference value according to the type of heating, as well as the value of the energy supplement, will be updated annually at the discretion of the Government and not according to the evolution of the population’s income and the consumer price of these services, as provided in the initial version.
