Members of the Committee on Economy, Budget, and Finance approved a report on the draft law providing for these measures. The document will be submitted for consideration at the first reading during a plenary session of Parliament.
The draft law was developed by the Ministry of Energy and transposes the EU Regulation on guidelines for trans-European energy infrastructure into national law. The proposed amendments aim to modernize the national regulatory framework in the energy sector in light of structural changes at the regional and European levels, new international commitments undertaken by our country, and the need to strengthen energy security.
According to the draft, the Energy Act will be supplemented with a separate chapter dedicated to projects of common and mutual interest. As a result, a special legal regime will be established for strategic energy infrastructure, and a coordinated and expedited procedure for approving such projects will be put in place. Thus, a single point of contact will be designated, maximum time limits for the stages of the authorization procedure will be established, and mechanisms for interagency coordination and monitoring will be introduced.
These legislative proposals will shorten the duration of administrative procedures, prevent bottlenecks, and ensure the predictability of the investment process. Currently, the approval of energy projects of public interest takes an average of about three years, depending on their complexity, and involves several agencies.
The draft law also includes a number of provisions clarifying the application of the existing legal framework to energy projects declared to be in the public interest and of national importance.
Once adopted, the legislative amendments will take effect on the date of their publication in the Official Gazette.
