Draft on holiday tickets debated

The Tourism Ministry and the leaders of the employers’ associations and union confederations are currently debating a law draft to grant employees “holiday” tickets similar to meal tickets. A 300 million euro business is waiting for conditions to be set so that it could be launched next season.
“The draft targets establishing a fund to which both the employers and the employees should contribute. The employee is eligible for a ticket as soon as four months during which contributions were deposited have passed, and can use it to pay for the services rendered by any travel agency, hotel or restaurant certified by the Tourism Ministry,” Dragos Raducan, general secretary of the Romanian Tourism Employers’ Associations Confederation (FPTR) told Ziarul Financiar. He added the tickets would be valid in Romania only.
Raducan, however, added that the draft was still under negotiations with both the employers’ associations and with the unions and that a great deal of key issues had yet to be addressed. The draft could therefore be finished as early as this fall, so that it would not be possible to enforce as of this season, Raducan specified. He explained the most important requirement of the Ministry in order to promote the draft was to have it signed by every employers’ associations confederation and union confederation chairman.
The main problem is finding someone to manage the funds, estimated to total some 250-300 million euro a year. “The unions want the companies issuing meal tickets – in which they hold stakes, to manage the funds. We do not agree with this proposal; we want a separate financial institution for this job,” the tourism employers representative said.
One of the employers’ associations to have been sought for an opinion is UNPR, an organisation that does not agree with the draft debated. The UNPR chairman, Marian Milut said that taking 300 million out of the economic circuit would make the cash flow problems of the private companies even worse. UNPR also doubts such funds could be properly managed.
The companies will not have to offer holiday tickets to their employees, as in the meal tickets’ case.