Romania's interim Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan said on Friday that although a large number of National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) milestones have been met through legislation adopted by Parliament, amendments introduced by an 'ad hoc PSD-AUR alliance' risk triggering financial penalties or being declared unconstitutional.

'With all their shortcomings, a large part of these milestones have been addressed in Parliament over the past two weeks. However, this came at the cost of what I would call the mutilation of some of these laws because an ad hoc alliance between the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) introduced amendments to at least two or three of these bills that either risk leading to financial penalties - meaning they may not be recognised as fulfilled milestones - or fall into an area of possible unconstitutionality. In both cases, we risk failing to meet these milestones solely for political reasons, to generate publicity or settle political scores,' Bolojan told RFI Romania.

As an example, he cited amendments to the timetable for phasing out coal-fired power generation and replacing it with gas-fired, photovoltaic and energy storage capacity, warning that these changes could affect the disbursement of EU funds.

'Even though the government is no longer considering closing any coal-fired power plants because we cannot do so given the realities of energy security and system balance, think, for example, of the coal-fired plant in Craiova. We received EUR 168 million in EU grants to replace it, but those funds were not used. We also received state aid worth hundreds of millions of euros over the years to keep these coal units operating until they were replaced. We spent that money, failed to use the grants and, of course, we cannot leave a city without heating in winter. Because we cannot do that, Romania will incur financial penalties this autumn for that reason alone. If we also keep the amendments they introduced, future EU payments could be blocked until the problem is corrected,' Bolojan said.

According to the interim prime minister, the amendments were introduced 'irresponsibly.'

On Wednesday, the Chamber of Deputies, acting as the decision-making chamber, passed the decarbonisation bill after adopting a PSD amendment stipulating that the gradual decommissioning of lignite- and hard coal-fired electricity generation capacity may take place only after equivalent new energy capacity has been built and commissioned.

A European Commission spokesperson told AGERPRES on Thursday that the Commission would assess whether the amendments adopted by Romania's Parliament could affect the fulfilment of Milestone 114 under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which concerns energy sector reform and the gradual phase-out of coal- and lignite-fired power generation. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Alina Novaceanu; EN - writing by: Simona Iacob)