Romania will be able to invest 6 billion euros to reduce energy and transport poverty

Romania will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Social Fund for Climate. The funds will have to be used for investments that support vulnerable groups, citizens in energy or transport poverty, according to a CSD report, according to euractiv.ro.
Romania will receive 9.25% (6 billion euros) of the financing package worth 65 billion euros of the Social Fund for Climate, available in the period 2026-2032, which will create a “significant opportunity” to reduce the poverty rate energy at the national level.
The funds will have to be used for investments that support vulnerable groups, citizens in energy or transport poverty, says the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD), the initiator of the Romanian Energy Poverty Observatory (ORSE), in a report on the effects of the application of ETS 2 on countries in the region, carried out together with Wise Europe from Poland and adelphi from Germany.
“In Romania, households that use gas-based devices for home heating and are already energy poor will be the most vulnerable to ETS 2. But other types of households will also be indirectly impacted by the ETS 2 system. Therefore, a the big stake is to develop programs adapted to the energy needs of low- and middle-income households that are vulnerable to any price increases. These households are already in precariousness or at high risk of energy poverty if they do not benefit from long-term interventions. One of the most important tasks for the authorities in the coming period is to identify and profile the households that will be most affected”, said Andreea Vornicu, researcher at the Center for the Study of Democracy and co-author of the study.
This 6 billion euro financing from which Romania will benefit will create “a major opportunity to reduce the high rate of energy poverty recorded at the national level, if the vulnerable categories of consumers are correctly identified”, Andreea Vornicu also declared.
In order to access the money available through the Social Climate Fund, the beneficiary states must develop, by mid-2025, clear and comprehensive action plans that identify households vulnerable to rising energy bills, as well as vulnerable transport users.
In Romania, 37% of households were in energy poverty in 2022, having spent more than 10% of their income on energy bills (electricity and heating), according to CSD modeling based on data contained in the Family Budget Survey carried out by the National Institute of Statistics.