“We were not consulted when this resolution was adopted (ed.: Resolution agreed by the Council of Ministers in September 2022, which introduced the solidarity tax). What we will see at the end, at the level of July, is that these companies will pay solidarity tax,” Finance Minister Adrian Cachiu said on Thursday.

According to him, ANAF has tools to (to check if — ed.) items claimed by a particular company to see if they are correct or incorrect.

The law in Romania will be respected by all regulated companies, and all companies that have received exceptional profits must redistribute these profits to society through the budget of the member states, so that they are used to compensate the cost of living of citizens, but also to achieve new investments, also said Cachiu.

We will remind, on Wednesday, the government spokesman, Dan Carbunaru, assured that the legislation in Romania will be followed.

“At the moment, there is an inspection carried out by ANAF at this enterprise and we are waiting for the result of this inspection. We are waiting for the results of the inspections carried out by the competent institutions, so that at the end we will have more details,” said Dan Karbunaru, when asked at the end of the executive session that OMV had indicated that it would not pay the solidarity tax.

OMV Peter received a net profit 10.3 billion lei last year, an increase of 260% compared to the previous year, when it received only 2.86 billion lei. In a report published on the website of the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB), the company says it does not plan to pay the solidarity tax introduced by the government (EOG 186/2022).

The reaction of Klaus Johannis

President Klaus Iohannis said that representatives of the Ministry of Finance should say whether OMV Petrom will pay solidarity tax or not, since the regulatory act was developed by this ministry. Johannis said he was “a little surprised” to learn that “the Department of Energy was not co-opted into the discussion.” “My only request was that this act be legal and clear, meaning that it does not violate any directive and any law in force in Romania, and be so clear that there is no debate as to whether it is or not. We all see the result on TV,” he added.

“It will be paid or not, those who adopted the regulations, i.e. the Ministry of Finance, will definitely say. I was a little surprised when I found out after the approval how the matter was discussed and found out, for example, that the Ministry of Energy was not co-opted in the discussion,” Johannis said on Thursday when asked if OMV Petrom would pay tax solidarity.

He added that this issue was discussed at the finance level, which “in principle is normal, because we are talking about a fee or a tax.”

“I was informed that this act is being worked out. My only request was that this act be legal and clear, that is, that it does not violate any directive and any law in force in Romania, and that it be so clear that there is no debate as to whether it is or not. We all see the result on TV. The whole day, hello, they are discussing whether there is or not… I think that it is necessary to clarify to those who worked on the document. Nothing is lost, but shifting the blame from one political court to another does not solve the problem,” the head of state said.

Financial director and member of the board of OMV Petrom, Alina Popa, said on February 2 that OMV does not have a solidarity tax in our country, but if ANAF comes to a different conclusion, the company will pay. She also said that earlier this year, ANAF conducted an audit to verify the turnover and its structure.