Major Romanian telecom operators estimate new taxes will cost them EUR 3.1 bln

Three major Romanian telecom operators, Orange, Vodafone and Telekom (notably not including RCS&RDS), have warned the Government that the provisions of the emergency ordinance 114/2008, particularly pertaining the telecom market, “breach EU regulations” and “will make it impossible to implement new [5G] technologies.” The 13-page document quoted by Hotnews.ro includes a thorough legal and economic analysis of the ordinance. The operators warn that the total cost incurred by the companies as an effect of the ordinance will be EUR 3.3 billion this year, an amount exceeding the annual revenues of the industry and accounting for 60% of the total investments of the mobile operators over the last 10 years. Most of the cost will consist in the fees to be paid for the 5G operating licenses, estimated by the Government at EUR 3.1 billion or more, "an amount that obviously can't be borne by the 4 mobile operators present in the market." The bullet payment should, however, be distributed among all the years covered by the licenses. Even so, the value of the fees expected by the state is large. The telecom operators recalled that following the 2012 auction, for a similar volume of frequencies, the total amount of the minimum license fees was EUR 726.8 million, more than 4 times lower than the one established under the emergency ordinance 114/2018 for the auction in 2019. Romanian telecom operators say new fees mulled by Govt. are unrealistic editor@romania-insider.com (photo source: Shutterstock)