The ombudsman: There is an ordinance on energy poverty, there is no law on the basis of which it is issued

The ombudsman Diana Kovacheva sued the Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov and the Ministers of Energy Rumen Radev, of Labor and Social Policy Ivanka Shalapatova and of Regional Development and Public Works Andrey Tsekov for a serious violation of legal principles in the drafting of a normative act.

In this particular case, Prof. Kovacheva draws attention to the fact that public consultations on the draft regulation on energy poverty, which affects hundreds of thousands of households, ends today. At the same time, the changes to the Energy Law were not promulgated in the State Gazette because President Rumen Radev vetoed them on October 18 of this year. According to a decision of a five-member panel of the SAC, the discussion of a draft regulation should begin after the law is promulgated and enters into force.

The statutory principles of openness and coherence, according to the Law on Normative Acts, are being violated.

Even if the deputies overcome the veto imposed by the head of state and the law is adopted, the deadline for public consultations on the regulation expires today, i.e. before the promulgation of the amendments to the energy law. Thus, in practice, the public discussion procedure is flawed. There is a separate issue that there are no published reasons, along with the draft of the regulation, which is another serious violation of the ZNA, about which the ombudsman raised the alarm as early as October 27, 2023.

Regarding the project, the ombudsman is adamant that it raises many unanswered questions and notes that there are reasonable doubts regarding: determining the number of people in need, respectively reaching them with assistance schemes; the financial and other means that will be necessary for the implementation of the regulation; cooperation between national and local governance structures; the effective communication and exchange of information with the vulnerable and those affected by energy poverty; the creation and management of the information system for the energy poor; the methodology for forming standard prices for final household customers of electricity; the exercise of control over the implementation of the regulation and the instructions for its implementation.