diff --git a/scripts/start/run.R b/scripts/start/run.R
index 5d01befe6..f07725cae 100644
--- a/scripts/start/run.R
+++ b/scripts/start/run.R
@@ -9,11 +9,6 @@ run <- function() {
 
   load("config.Rdata")
 
-  if (cfg$pythonEnabled == "on"){
-    # Set environment variables so that reticulate finds the configured Python virtual env
-    Sys.setenv(RETICULATE_PYTHON = piamenv::pythonBinPath(".venv"))
-  }
-
   # Save start time
   timeGAMSStart <- Sys.time()
 
diff --git a/scripts/start/submit.R b/scripts/start/submit.R
index a2a126059..c43d2c139 100644
--- a/scripts/start/submit.R
+++ b/scripts/start/submit.R
@@ -96,13 +96,6 @@ submit <- function(cfg, restart = FALSE, stopOnFolderCreateError = TRUE) {
                stdout = renvLogPath, stderr = "2>&1")
     }
 
-    if (cfg$pythonEnabled == "on") {
-      piamenv::createResultsfolderPythonVirtualEnv(normalizePath(cfg$results_folder))
-    } else {
-      # create empty .venv folder so that new venv won't be initialized automatically by .Rprofile
-      dir.create(file.path(cfg$results_folder, ".venv"))
-    }
-
     # Save the cfg (with the updated name of the result folder) into the results folder.
     # Do not save the new name of the results folder to the .RData file in REMINDs main folder, because it
     # might be needed to restart subsequent runs manually and should not contain the time stamp in this case.
diff --git a/start.R b/start.R
index 06fdefafd..903e581b2 100755
--- a/start.R
+++ b/start.R
@@ -301,10 +301,6 @@ if (any(c("--reprepare", "--restart") %in% flags)) {
         cfg$slurmConfig      <- slurmConfig
         if (testOneRegi_region != "") cfg$gms$c_testOneRegi_region <- testOneRegi_region
       }
-      # Make sure all python requirements are installed
-      if (cfg$pythonEnabled == "on") {
-        piamenv::updatePythonVirtualEnv()
-      }
       # Directly start runs that have a gdx file location given as path_gdx... or where this field is empty
       gdx_specified <- grepl(".gdx", cfg$files2export$start[path_gdx_list], fixed = TRUE)
       gdx_na <- is.na(cfg$files2export$start[path_gdx_list])