Romania's junior ruling partner insists for abolition of “greed tax” - sources

The junior ruling coalition partner in Romania, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE), and the ethnic Hungarians’ party UDMR - which supports the ruling coalition in the Parliament, have reportedly conditioned the vote of the 2019 budget planning on amendments to the controversial emergency ordinance 114/2018, unofficial sources from the governing coalition told G4Media.ro. ALDE wants to eliminate or at least postpone the new taxes levied to the energy companies, while UDMR calls for a one-year delay. Notably, the energy ministry is assigned, under the ruling coalition’s protocol, to ALDE and the party is highly involved in the management of the state-controlled energy companies as well. Some party leaders run own businesses in the energy sector as well, G4Media.ro commented. As for UDMR, leader Kelemen Hunor also publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with the impact of emergency 114. The senior partner of the ruling coalition, the Social Democratic Party (PSD), which has initiated the ordinance 114, is reportedly willing to make some concessions, according to sources G4Media.ro, both in terms of the magnitude of the provisions of the ordinance on energy and telecommunication companies, but also in regard to the so-called “greed tax” on financial assets. Romania’s Govt., central bank to decide on “greed tax” within two weeks Bloomberg: RO Govt. may drop greed tax if central bank redefines ROBOR methodology editor@romania-insider.com (photo source: Pexels.com)