Final: They postponed the liberalization of the household electricity market for a year – Politics

Deputies postponed the liberalization of the electricity market for household consumers by one year. The Parliament adopted in the second reading changes to the Law on Energy, after last week it adopted in the first reading three bills for amendments to the law submitted by Cornelia Ninova “BSP for Bulgaria”, Krasen Krastev from GERB-SDS and Ramadan Atalai from DPS, Pavela Mitova “There is such a people” and a group of people’s representatives.

Cornelia Ninova made an editorial proposal to postpone the liberalization for three years, but it was rejected.

On October 5, the parliament approved changes to the Energy Act, which included liberalization of the energy market for household consumers. The amendments provided that from July 1, 2024, the National Electricity Company (NEK) would cease to be a public supplier and producer quotas for the regulated market would be abolished.

Today, the National Assembly voted for the Commission for Energy and Water Regulation (KEVR) to conduct the production and determine the component of the regulated price of the final supplier in connection with the supply of electricity to domestic final customers for the regulatory period starting on July 1, 2025.

The deputies noted that by June 30, 2025, final suppliers will conclude a compensation contract with the “Security of the Electricity System” Fund. Until May 31, 2025, KEVR and the Ministry of Energy will conduct information and explanatory campaigns for household end customers regarding the benefits of market liberalization, the options for choosing a final supplier and the options for compensating prices for household end customers.

The Parliament decided that by January 1, 2026, KEVR will submit to the European Commission a report on the assessment of progress towards achieving effective competition between suppliers and the transition to market-based prices for household customers.

During the debate, Pavela Mitova from “There is such a people” (ITN) pointed out that the arguments with which the amendments to the Energy Law were made, namely that we should receive the money under the Recovery and Sustainability Plan (RPS), were not give reason to accept things that are not obligatory on us. It was necessary to focus a little more on some transparent mechanisms for the implementation of this liberalization, Mitova believes.

I do not see in what form this preparation will be carried out by the dates you propose, said Radoslav Rybarski (PP-DB) and specified that we are preparing for liberalization from 2019.

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