AmCham: Cascade of emergency ordinances induces lack of predictability, dents regulatory process credibility

The pace of the concurrent changes, by emergency ordinances, to legislation in multiple sectors that are strategic to the economy is unjustifiably fast and does not allow going through all the necessary steps to ensure the predictability, transparency and assessment of the economic and social impact of the adopted measures, the American Chamber of Commerce in Romania (AmCham) warned in a Friday release. 

AmCham Romania sounds alarm on the accelerated degradation of the quality of public policies, regulation and governance in Romania, the release reads, adding that such fast-paced changes to the law, which do not allow the completion of all the necessary steps so as to ensure the predictability, transparency and evaluation of the economic and societal impact of the adopted measures, have turned the National Reform Program into an obsolete document for outlining nationwide reform priorities, while the outcomes of the projects implemented together with the World Bank, which were aimed at restructuring the reform-implementation mechanisms with the central government are literally forgotten. 

According to AmCham, while the business milieu requests the reversal of Ordinance No. 114/2018 on budgetary - fiscal measures, the government announces new legislative projects with widespread implications for the economy, which deepen the uncertainty and the risk that Romania will be vulnerable in a global, regional and national economic context, and in an economic cycle that has reached maturity. 

The cascade of emergency ordinances that actually lack urgency and deviates from regulations, such as the European 'better regulation' approach, from the approach to the impact of new regulations on SMEs, or from the Regulatory Impact Assessment, is sometimes aggressive, induces a lack of predictability in the economy overall, dents the credibility of the regulatory process, puts under question the reasons behind these measures taken despite repeated negative signals from those concerned, and takes Romania farther from its commitments undertaken within the European structure. As an irony, all these developments are happening exactly in the period when Romania receives the highest attention from the member states and the European institutions, as we hold the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU. AmCham Romania draws attention to the high price Romania is paying in terms of the country image and credibility among investors, which were built over time, with sustained efforts and which are very difficult to regain once lost. Meanwhile, the Romanians who still chose to stay in the country have started footing the bill for GEO No. 114/2018 and the companies give up investment 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 momentary interests, the release reads. 

AmCham considers, on the other hand, that the normal pace of preparation, public consultation and approval by Parliament of the draft 2019 State Budget is distorted and the approach hinders a quality public debate on the most important public policy instrument for the allocation of resources this year.