E.ON Romania's Paasch:Energy consumers, not to rush to conclude new contracts, liberalization, not done overnight

Energy consumers should not panic or rush to conclude new contracts, because they can make this change at any time, in the context of market liberalization from January 1, Manfred Paasch, general manager of E.ON Romania, told an interview for AGERPRES. He is convinced that, a year after liberalization, the market will look completely different. Competition will increase between suppliers, offers will be diversified and thus costs will decrease and services will improve. According to Manfred Paasch, E.ON has a total of 3.3 million customers in Romania. Of these, 3.1 million household customers, of which 1.4 million customers in the electricity segment. Of these 1.4 million, about 23 percent, that is about 330,000, are on the free market. "The basis of a free market is the existence of a large number of competitors. A large number of competitors that come with many offers. As I said earlier, we have something like this even now and it is clear that the number of competitors will increase in the coming months. Even now, six weeks after liberalization, we have 60 competitors in our field, which is a lot. But the number will certainly increase," Paasch added. "Looking to the future, what I can say for sure is that I strongly believe that we will see competitive prices. I think that is the most important thing. We have to keep in mind that if we look at the idea of liberalization, competition between more producers and more suppliers will reduce costs," Paasch said. "As I said, I strongly believe that the situation will change. I would not say dramatically, but it will certainly change. Because it is about the experience we have and I tell people and the authorities in the political area to take time, things don't happen overnight," Paasch said.AGERPRES(RO - author: Florentina Cernat, editor: Mariana Nica; EN - author: Simona Iacob, editor: Maria Voican)