President Maia Sandu requested the Government to formulate a set of mandatory continuous monitoring and energy consumption reduction measures for all the public institutions. The request was made in the meeting of the Supreme Security Council (SSC), which was convened on Monday evening to discuss the current threats to energy security, IPN reports.

Also, the Government will estimate the impact of the increase in electricity prices on the population and the business community and will propose measures to alleviate the impact. In particular, it goes to the impact on the vulnerable sections of society and on enterprises whose competitiveness is affected by the rise in the prices of factors of production.

“The Republic of Moldova in the period is going through its most serious energy crisis in its history and the way in which we will pass the upcoming winter depends on us all,” said Maia Sandu, being quoted in a press release of the presidential press service.

The SSC members examined the situation in the energy sector where a shortage of electricity has been witnessed since October 24, 2022 after Ukraine stopped supplying electricity to Moldova following the serious damaging of its electrical energy system by Russia.

The representatives of the institutions responsible for the energy sector and the security sector provided information about the situation on the energy market and depicted different possible scenarios, including the risk that Gazprom will further cut or will fully stop natural gas supplies to Moldova. There were considered alternative ways for supplying the population and the economy with electricity and measures that should be taken to reduce the impact of the energy crisis. The shortage of electricity can be covered with purchases of power from other markets, but at much higher prices.