Romania’s government ignores public consultation on key bills, says AmCham

Business advocacy group AmCham Romania said it was concerned by the “abrupt” approval of poorly planned or irrelevant bills for the general interest, adding that the roll out of new “arbitrary” taxes dents investors’ trust in the country.

The AmCham, which represents around 350 companies with a total investment stock of USD 20 billion in the country, said it was concerned by the “inefficient, opaque and delayed consultation process” conducted by the government and line ministries regarding important legislation.

“We are disapproving such attempts to hastily approve pieces of legislation without prior genuine consultations in areas such as the fight against corruption, conflict of interests’ regulation, lobby, and the scope of the Romanian Chamber of Commerce,” said the association in a statement.

The group claimed that the recommendations it had jointly made with the Foreign Investors’ Council, regarding the rewriting of the Fiscal Code and the Fiscal Procedural Code and the reform of tax collection agency ANAF, were slightly taken into consideration by authorities. It noted that some progress was made on the taxation framework for holdings.

“To a high extent, our recommendations have been either ignored or postponed for review and eventually for future- although unspecified- implementation, to the detriment of the current needs of the Romanian economy and society,” said the AmCham.

Some of the measures passed by the government without prior consultation with the business environment referred to the mandatory VAT cash collection system and the special construction tax. In addition, the government approved a new computation mechanism for excise duties and rolled out a 7 eurocents duty for gasoline and diesel.

According to the AmCham, authorities have failed to streamline procedures on VAT refunds, on which the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, has already started an infringement procedure.