Romanian Senate endorses emergency ordinance 114 without a vote

Romania's Senate included the draft bill for the approval of the controversial emergency ordinance (OUG) 114/2018, which enacts new taxes, on the agenda of its March 4 plenary for silent adoption, Mediafax informed. Thus, the bill will pass in the form issued by the Government, ignoring the amendments drafted by the Senate's expert committees.

Junior ruling coalition party, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) has strongly argued for eliminating several taxes including the turnover tax for companies in the energy sector. Meanwhile, the senior ruling party, the Social Democrat Party (PSD), promised to sweeten the “greed tax” levied to banks with the declared purpose of “discipline them” into charging lower interest rates on individual loans.

The silent adoption deadline for OUG 114/2018 was Friday, March 1, and the Senate's Budget Committee postponed the debate and adoption of a report on the draft in Tuesday's session. This was the second time when the Budget Commission decided to postpone the talks on the project.

In related news, advisor to Romania's National Bank governor Mugur Isarescu, Adrian Vasilescu, floated another idea, namely that OUG 114/2018 needs the endorsement of BNR since it refers to the banking system. BNR and the Government met and discussed the topic in the National Macrostability Committee, but the two sides reached no consensus.

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