Law No. 239/2025 on the establishment of measures to recover and streamline public resources is starting to function as a stress test applied to the private sector, at a time when the Romanian economy is already weakened by fiscal uncertainty, increased costs and an increasingly tense relationship with the state, believes the National Confederation for Women's Entrepreneurship (CONAF).
"Law no. 239/2025 was presented as an instrument for recovering and streamlining public resources. In economic reality, however, it is beginning to function as a stress test applied to the private sector, at a time when the Romanian economy is already weakened by fiscal uncertainty, increased costs and an increasingly tense relationship with the state. The National Confederation for Women's Entrepreneurship (CONAF) warns that the problem is not budgetary consolidation - this is necessary - but the way the measures are designed and the absence of a deep understanding of how the real economy works. When fiscal pressure is applied without analysis, without phasing and without dialogue, it does not produce discipline, but pushes the economic environment towards withdrawal", a statement from the organization, sent to AGERPRES on Friday, shows.
According to the cited source, one of the most sensitive points of the law is the payment installment regime which, although it was conceived as a support instrument for companies temporarily in difficulty, risks turning into a disproportionate form of coercion.
The state requires, in certain situations, the establishment of surety contracts guaranteed by the personal assets of the administrators, even when the companies have already provided real guarantees on their own assets, evaluated and accepted by the tax authority. From a legal point of view, the tax obligation belongs to the legal entity. From an economic point of view, the transfer of risk to the individual radically changes the relationship between the state and the entrepreneur, CONAF emphasizes.
"For many administrators, this requirement becomes impossible to honor. Not due to lack of will, but due to the lack of personal assets that can be used as collateral. The effect is not to increase compliance, but to restrict access to installments and accelerate insolvencies. A mechanism created to support is, in fact, transformed into an elimination filter," the document warns.
CONAF also draws attention to the fact that there was no public impact analysis before the adoption of the law, there is no clear data on the number of companies affected, their real payment capacity or the risk of insolvency generated by the new conditions. At the macroeconomic level, there are no assessments of the impact on investments, employment and budget collection in the medium term, the organization claims.
"In the absence of these benchmarks, fiscal policy becomes an experiment applied to the real economy. The costs are not theoretical. They translate into companies postponing their investments, reducing staff or completely exiting the market. And exiting the market is not a spectacular gesture. It is, most of the time, a silent renunciation," the Confederation specifies.
Regarding the increase in local taxes and fees, business representatives point out that, in many cases, the increases were not gradual nor correlated with inflation, but applied abruptly, sometimes almost doubling. Moreover, according to CONAF, the public consultation was limited to a formal exercise, without a real debate and without explanations regarding the necessity of these increases.
"The fiscal pressure comes in a context in which the public administration is experiencing major difficulties in delivering basic services. The dysfunctions of the Ghiseul.ro platform are an eloquent example of the gap between the requirements imposed on taxpayers and the state's capacity to provide the infrastructure necessary for compliance. It is a problem that goes beyond the technical area. The lack of institutional responsibility following these failures fuels the perception of an unbalanced relationship: the obligations are firm for taxpayers, while the state's responsibility remains diffuse," the press release reads.
In this context, the organization presents official data from the National Office of the Trade Register indicating an accelerated deterioration of the economic environment. Over 74,000 companies were deregistered in the first 11 months of 2025, with significant increases in Bucharest, Ilfov, Bihor and Olt, and trade, agriculture and transport - sectors with a strategic role in the economy - are among the most affected.
"Economic experience shows that measures that accelerate insolvencies do not increase fiscal discipline. On the contrary, they reduce collection in the medium and long term. Tax receivables become definitive losses, and the pressure shifts to an ever smaller number of taxpayers remaining active. This creates a vicious circle: companies disappear, collection decreases, taxes increase for those who remain, and the economy becomes even more vulnerable," the statement added.
Under these conditions, CONAF claims that it does not dispute the need for fiscal reforms and budgetary consolidation, but the way in which they are implemented: without analysis, without dialogue and without an administration prepared to assume its own performance.
The National Confederation for Women's Entrepreneurship (CONAF) represents the largest entity of this kind in Romania and has 31 branches, 3 federations, 16 employers' associations, 55 associations and 10,000 companies, over 245,000 employees.
CONAF projects include the "Youth Pact", the "Marathon for Entrepreneurship Education", the "Entrepreneurial Vocation" Forum, "SuraTAX", the "24 Trends for 2024" Forum, "DigitalUP" "Labor Pact" - in partnership with FPPG, the "Entrepreneurial Education Pact", the "Romanian Venture Forum" series of open dialogues, "Romanian Tourism: Between Impasse and Opportunity". Hundreds of speakers and thousands of entrepreneurs debated the most pressing issues in the most important Romanian cities, in order to find the optimal solutions and the best strategies for the future.
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