The mystery of chapter 16 - closed or under discussion?

The situation concerning Chapter 16 on Energy from Romania’s EU accession negotiations became a subject of disputes inside the Government as of Wednesday.

Vasile Puscas, Romania’s Negotiator for EU accession says negotiations with the European authorities on Chapter 16 are continuing and the chapter is still open. This publicly contradicts Iulian Iancu, state secretary within the Ministry of Industry and Trade, who said the EU specialised committee decided to close the Energy chapter last week. The decision was supposed to be made public by the end of the month, the latter added. This is the first harsh public reply from Vasile Puscas, delegate minister from the Nastase Cabinet, aimed at fellow Cabinet members.

On the other hand, during a TV show the Economy Minister backed Iulian Iancu’s statements about the energy chapter being closed.

“I’ve read in the papers,” said a visibly annoyed Vasile Puscas, “that an Economy Ministry official, state secretary Iancu was talking about the closing of the Energy chapter. He probably had a beautiful dream in the night, while I had nightmares. I called the Economy Ministry this morning (Wednesday morning) to tell them to get real. This is a very difficult round of talks in Brussels.” Puscas was speaking during the ‘Competition in Romania in light of European integration’ conference organised by the Competition Council and English language publication Nine O’Clock.

The head of the Romanian team of negotiators explained he could not yet provide any data on the closure of the energy chapter, the competition chapter or for others still under negotiation.

In Brussels at the end of last week, Prime Minister Adrian Nastase in his turn stated that Romania had the opportunity to conclude two more negotiation chapters by the end of the month. He was talking about energy and the free movement of services.

Ireland ends its term as president of the European Union on June 30, to be replaced by the Netherlands.

Chapter 16 includes all the issues related to the privatisation of companies in the energy sector; to the reform, restructuring and retooling of the energy system; the level of arrears; and regulations and methods for calculating natural gas and electrical and thermal power tariffs.

As regards privatisation, the Romanian State has not completed any major privatisations so far, with transactions for Electrica, Petrom, Distrigaz Sud and Distrigaz Nord in progress at the moment.

On the other hand, the Romanian authorities are committed to reducing arrears from 130,000bn ROL (3.16bn euros) at the end of 2003, to 109,000bn ROL (2.68bn euros) by the end of this month. These arrears accounted for some 6.3% of GDP in late 2003, higher than early in the year.

The energy sector remains the main arrears-generating sector. adrian.mirsanu@zf.ro