Romania’s Constitutional Court is due to discuss on Thursday USR’s and Forţa Dreptei’s submissions on a law requiring agricultural producers to report monthly stocks.

USR’s press release states that making these reports mandatory “will allow interest groups linked to state institutions to get hold of trade secret information and enrich themselves through speculation and price manipulation, while Romanian producers lose out.” their bargaining power.”

The law violates constitutional provisions on economic freedom and protection of fair competition, the appeal to the Court says.

It is also noted that “the legislative proposal is unjustified and unfounded, and the statement of reasons violates the rules of legislative technique, as it does not comply with the principle of legal security, predictability and clarity of norms.”

Forza Dreptei, for its part, showed that “in fact, the project unjustifiably and without objective reasons opens the possibility for public officials to use data and information obtained by arbitrarily restricting the basic rights and freedoms of individuals, seriously affecting economic freedom.” .

“This legislative decision, which does not exist in any other EU member state, is all the less justified in the conditions when there is already a valid legal framework, with the help of which authorities benefit from information about agricultural production, as well as the possibility of creating state reserves.” – said the quoted source.

On February 8, at the plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies, a draft law was adopted, according to which agricultural producers and business entities are obliged to report monthly on stocks of agricultural and food products.

The draft law aims to regulate the adoption of measures to create a legislative framework aimed at reporting on stocks of agricultural and food products by agricultural producers, warehouses, processors at the national level and traders in conditions of conflict and crisis. or an emergency.

Exceptions to these provisions will be trade entities that have commercial buildings with a sales area of ​​up to 400 square meters inclusive, without premises intended for the storage and production of goods, traveling merchants, merchants engaged in catering activities, as well as those who carry out marketing activities in public places.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is responsible for implementing measures to centralize stocks of agricultural and food products, maintaining the confidentiality of data on these products and developing an IT system to collect statistical data reported by economic entities in the agri-food sector. .

Business entities in the agro-food sector are required to provide statistical data for accounting of agricultural and food product stocks once a month by the 15th of the previous month to the Ministry of Agriculture and Development. , the project says.

Failure to comply with the provisions is an offense and is punishable by a fine of 5,000 to 20,000 lei.

Producers and traders will be obliged to report stocks of vegetables and fruits, cereals and their products, oil crops and their products, fodder legumes, certified seeds: cereals, rice, oil crops and proteins, meat and meat products meat, canned food. and meat mixtures, milk and milk products, flour and bakery products, processed, processed, preserved vegetable and fruit products, fats and oils, water, including natural mineral water, spring water and any other bottled or packaged water, rice, herbs, salt and spices, teas, sugar, honey, yeast.