Accession to the European Union does not entail a tripling of the gas prices in Romania as the representatives of a national gas company announced last week in a statement for Hotnews.ro, the Delegation of the European Commission said Thursday.

As an EU member to be, Romanian has only to comply with the functional market economy rules, a press release explains.

"In the current context of extremely volatile fuel prices at a global level, the issue of energy (and, in particular, natural gas) pricing in Romania is already sufficiently difficult to understand so as not to require its additional complication by alarmist statements sinning by omission" writes a press release.

Romania needs only to abide by the EU competition rules and regulations (acquis) and to display the characteristics of a functioning market economy.

This presupposes that domestic gas has to be priced at a level that allows for the recovery of full production costs and that scarce resources have to be allocated to their best uses, according to signals given by prices which reflect world market trends.

Consequently, the evolution of international fuel prices is directly relevant for the level at which local natural gas is to be priced and, if significant increases will continue at a global level, there is no way to completely insulate the Romanian market from their effects.

Last week, representatives of the Distrigaz Nord company stated for Hotnews.ro that there was a high possibility that the purchasing cost of natural gases might triple in the perspective of Romania’s accession to the EU.