President Klaus Iohannis resubmitted to the parliament on Thursday the law on establishing a solidarity tax for energy companies. The normative act was adopted by the Chamber of Deputies at the end of March. Since the decree introducing the solidarity tax was poorly written and OMV Petrom, from which the state wanted to take money, did not fit, the parliament amended it.

Yohannis asks the parliament to re-examine the law passed by the Chamber of Deputies at the end of March.

• “The law under consideration was tacitly adopted by the Senate, as the first competent chamber. The Chamber of Deputies, as the decision-making chamber, approved GEO no. 186/2022 with amendments and additions, which introduced a new paragraph of (6) in Art. 1. The newly introduced text details how the weight will be calculated within 75% of activity turnover in the crude oil, natural gas, coal and refining sectors. For this, reference prices are established, which will be included in the calculation of the share in the turnover of companies carrying out such activities, but not lower than the average quotations on the London or Vienna Stock Exchange, depending on the circumstances, in the reporting financial year/financial year.
• Regarding the normative content of the law submitted for promulgation, we believe that some provisions are not clear enough to ensure that safety does not create problems in application, and therefore require a re-examination by Parliament. Thus, it is necessary to re-analyze and clarify the mechanism for calculating the temporary solidarity contribution in order to avoid situations in which the application of the rules would be complicated or would cause other consequences than those sought by the legislator.
• Note that according to Art. 6 para. (1) from Law No. 24/2000 on the rules of legislative technique for the development of normative acts, on the content and justification of legislative decisions: “The draft normative act must establish the necessary, sufficient and possible rules that lead to the greatest possible legislative stability and efficiency (. . . .),” says the request for re-examination sent by Yohannis.

• View the reconsideration request here