Romania's ruling coalition partners clash over supplementary taxation

Romania’s finance minister Eugen Teodorovici stressed that most likely the emergency ordinance (OUG) 114/2018 will not be amended, as some sources have indicated.

“We are open to any proposals that are good for the people. However [until such proposals are made], those hoping for the OUG to get changed should better not hope,” minister Teodorovici said in a conference organized by local newspaper Bursa, according to Profit.ro.

Previously, the co-president of the ruling coalition, Calin Popescu Tariceanu, said that prime minister Viorica Dancila “agreed that the 2% turnover tax the Government levied through OUG 114/2018 on companies in the energy sector is excessive”.

“We have to analyze the situation and most likely abandon the tax,” said Tariceanu, who is also co-chairman of the ruling coalition and head of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE).

The so-called “greed tax”, a tax on local banks' financial assets proportional to the interbank interest rate ROBOR, might be revised as well, Tariceanu said at that time.

Finance minister Teodorovici does not seem to share such views. He also said that the Government should check the expertise of its representatives in the supervisory boards of state energy companies. The Energy Ministry is supervised by Tariceanu’s ALDE and the unexpected appointments made by the ministry in energy companies' boards have indeed spurred comments in media. In response to Teodorovici’s comments, Tariceanu made it clear that the Ministry of Energy is under his political control.

“I advise minister Teodorovici to keep his opinions for himself when it comes to the Ministry of Energy because he has no expertise in this field. I do not believe that he has enough expertise about how the ministry is operating since an ALDE member coordinates the ministry,” Tariceanu commented, quoted by Hotnews.ro.

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