President Nicusor Dan said on Thursday, regarding the rise in fuel prices, that there is no question of intervening in the state's taxes and excise duties component, noting that it is good the situation is being monitored by the Romanian Competition Council.

'I can say that, for the moment, we are one week into this situation. Generally speaking, roughly, of the price a person pays for petrol at the pump, half is the base price of refined crude oil and half consists of the state's taxes and excise duties. What I can say with certainty is that there is no question of intervening further in this component of state taxes and excise duties. Unfortunately, we do not have the possibility to reduce it either,' Nicusor Dan stated when asked about the increase in fuel prices, in view of the external situation and whether the matter would be discussed in the Supreme Council of National Defence (Romania) or whether the government should intervene.

He added that possible sanctions cannot be imposed 'the very second the event occurs'.

'On the other hand, the Competition Council has, in its history, sanctioned - and very severely - anti-competitive practices. However, this has never happened, and it is not physically possible for it to happen the very second an event occurs. Sanctions are imposed after a month, or after two months. But it is very good that the president of the Competition Council has come out and warned that they are looking closely at this phenomenon, because of course it has a knock-on effect throughout the entire economy and on people's standard of living,' the president added.

Asked whether he might ask the government to introduce a support scheme for the population if prices continue to rise significantly, Nicusor Dan replied: 'When we get to that point, of course we can have that type of discussion, as has happened before.' AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Alina Novaceanu; EN - writing by: Cristina Zaharia)