AmCham warns about accelerated decrease in quality of public policy, governance in Romania

The American Chamber of Commerce in Romania (AmCham Romania), a leading representative of the business community in the country, has reacted to the changes announced or implemented by the Romanian authorities, warning about “the accelerated decrease in the quality of public policy, law-making and governance in Romania.” “We are confronted with concomitant changes through emergency ordinances, of legislation governing multiple strategic sectors for the economy, in a fast-forward mode that does not allow for observing all the necessary steps for ensuring the predictability, transparency and assessment of the economic and social impact of the adopted measures,” AmCham said in a press release. In AmCham Romania’s opinion, such an approach has deemed the National Reform Program obsolete in setting national reform priorities. Moreover, the results of World Bank projects aimed at restructuring reform implementation mechanisms within the central government function are long forgotten. AmCham also said that, while the business community stands against the controversial emergency ordinance 114/2018, calling for its abrogation, the government announces more changes, “deepening the uncertainty and the risks that Romania becomes more vulnerable to the tensions characterizing the global, regional and national economic context and to an economic cycle reaching maturity.” The changes include the emergency ordinance draft of the Consumer Protection Authority (ANPC) that imposes fines of up to 4% of the economic operators' turnover, and the transfer of attributions from tax agency ANAF to CNSP (the National Commission for Strategy and Prognosis), which AmCham characterizes as being “unexplainable”. AmCham also refers to the “pressures on independent institutions such as the Competition Council by imposing an unrealistic calendar for finalizing investigations or systematic attacks at the National Bank of Romania.” The business organization also said that “the distortion of the normal pace of preparation, public consultation and approval by the Parliament of the state budget project for 2019” also raised a series of concerns. AmCham explained that such and approach “denies any opportunity to have a qualitative public consultation on the most important public policy tool for the allocation of resources for the current year, and an in-depth scrutiny of the allocation of public resources in the Parliament.” “The flow of emergency ordinances which lack the emergency and which deviate from the European rules for better regulation, from the standards practice in place regarding the impact of new regulation on SMEs and the Regulatory Impact Assessment norms, is oftentimes aggressive, deepens the lack of predictability in the economy, declines the confidence in the regulation process, casts doubt on the real motivation behind these measures adopted despite repeated negative signals from stakeholders in the market, and distances Romania from its commitments within the EU.” AmCham Romania also said that this would cost Romania in terms of image and credibility among investors. Referring to the emergency ordinance 114/2018, the business organizations said that the Romanians are now paying the price of its implementation while companies are giving up investments and expansion plans in favor of other markets. “We call for a return to a transparent and constructive regulatory process that pursues long-term development goals rather than partisan, short-term interests.”