Daniel Apostol, FPPG: “It would be absurd to give up hydrocarbons; we should not be blamed because Romania has natural resources”

“Romania failed to solve a dilemma: how to move forward without standing still. I will explain this paradox. In economic growth we are doing well, in numbers, in economic development we are not doing well. And then, if we talk about the energy transition, a process that involves a transformation of the entire economy and the entire society, towards a state of higher development, we are not only talking about economic growth and percentages of GDP, but we are also talking about an essential transformation aimed at ensuring energy security

We should solve this paradox: economic growth should be felt in economic development. There is no economy without energy. There is no economic development without a sustained development of the energy sector,” Daniel Apostol, General Director, FPPG said during Energy CEO Forum organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“We have money, we have technologies, we have creative and innovative minds, we have a workforce specialized in the energy sector, we have natural resources, but we don’t have enough time. We are in a period of collaboration with the authorities regarding the Romanian energy strategy project.

European industrialists demanded the elimination of bureaucracy, the creation of competitiveness for a life of the European industrial sector.

We have to wake up from this dream, from this beautiful lethargy, and we have to see how we get more time for the energy transition, the economic transformation of society.

With more time gained, projects can become rational, not utopian. Everyone wants to live in a clean, healthy society and environment. Investment projects must be rational, they must be realistic, they must have economic justification, and they must have the necessary time to be implemented, because we are talking about projects in the entire energy sector.

We talk about big projects in vain if you don’t have the people to implement them. In vain we talk about beautiful ideas, if you do not have the engineers, specialists, craftsmen with whom to put them into practice. It would be absurd to give up hydrocarbons, resources that Romania has today, and it is a competitive argument against other European countries. We should not be blamed because Romania has natural resources.

But in addition to hydrocarbons, we have other technologies that we want to pay attention to in the perspective of ensuring energy security, energy equity and to achieve realistic targets, not utopian, which we must propose.”