Although President Klaus Iohannis decided to send it back to Parliament on Friday for review, Prime Minister Victor Ponta reiterates the idea that the Tax Code is a good one and this is a good time for implementation.
The new Tax Code will be put into effect anyway, by emergency ordinance or by taking responsibility, PM Ponta announced by phone at Romania TV. Ponta also voiced regret that the political consensus on the Tax Code issue has been lost.
“I think that the Parliament and us, the Government, will begin enforcing it either by an emergency ordinance or by pledging the responsibility on these measures, but you must know that the bad image remains and the businesses will say: <Look, there is political strife again, we’d better kept our money and see. We’ll no longer put it into Romania, because it is not a country of serious men>”, the head of the Executive notes and continued: “I have solutions. I can adopt by emergency ordinance on Wednesday … in the same way that we adopted the VAT cutting on foodstuffs to 9 percent – I can adopt the 19 percent (VAT cut) or something else. Or I can go and take responsibility (before the Parliament) and they will most certainly not have votes for the motion of censure. The issue is another: this is not a message of coherence and political consensus”.