The Party “Dignity and Truth Platform” (PPPDA) came into possession of a report on the prices of oil products compiled by the Competition Council. According to the document, as a result of the investigation that covered the period between 2019 and 2021, the Competition Council ascertained that the process of forming the prices of gasoline and diesel fuel was influenced by the avidity of oil companies and the excessive involvement of the political factor, the leader of the PPPDA Andrei Năstase told a news conference, being quoted by IPN.
PPPDA vice president Alexandru Slusari said the report confirms the suspicions that the oil products market is not transparent and works based on cartel agreements and under the influence of the political factor. “In the period covered by the investigation, the enterprises modified the prices of the same assortment of products in the same period and by the same amount for about ten times. This practice in relation to the prices of the main oil products and of liquefied petroleum gas was implemented with the aim of maintaining the market shares and controlling the market,” said the MP, reading the report.
Alexandru Slusari also said that the investigated enterprises gave up behaving independently, autonomously as they aimed to ensure a favorable position on the market and avoid real competition. The modification of prices by the same amount and in the same period of time, May 15, 2019 – January 18, 2021, cannot be explained from the angle of the determination of barometer market prices. “When an enterprise increases prices following the rise in costs, other enterprises that experience the same rises in costs follow their example. As a result of the analysis carried out by the Competition Council, it was determined that most of the decisions to modify fuel prices in a similar way were not based on conclusive economic justification,” says the report.
The PPPDA demands to urgently complete the investigation onto cartel agreements on the fuels market and to decrease the pieces of gasoline and diesel fuel or it will mount protests.
A number of filling stations posted higher prices of gasoline yesterday and today. For example, a liter of gasoline “95” now costs 20 lei, while a liter of gasoline “98” is sold for 20.80 lei. At other oil companies, the price of gasoline “95” remained 19.25 lei, while gasoline “98” is sold for 20.29 lei. The prices of diesel fuel and liquefied petroleum gas remained unchanged for now.
