State Intervention in the Natural Gas Industry. The Importance of Last Resort Supply in the Romanian Natural Gas Market

Abstract

In the last two years we have seen an increasing role of the state intervention in different sectors such as medicine, critical infrastructure, energy and, last but not least, security. Of course, such interventions were needed in order to provide a promptly response to COVID-19 pandemic and the urgency to start the economic recovery after the pandemic or to help both the population and the economic sector to cope with the extreme volatility of the energy markets, likewise increasing investments in military equipment and infrastructure, the last two being the result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, accompanied by Gazprom’s non-compliance with the contractual clauses for gas deliveries. Observational and case study based research conducted by the author will result in a fact-based detailing of some of the most important state interventions in the gas sector which took place in some of the biggest European countries, as well as similar examples in Romania.