Owners who will not be returned their agricultural lands will be compensated with certificates, which will be used exclusively to buy shares in the state-owned companies that are going to be privatised, according to a law draft submitted by the Executive to the Parliamentary Agriculture Panels “for informational purposes.” The draft is to change Law 1/2000 on agricultural and forest land retrocession.
According to Government plans, the lands privately held by the state and those belonging to the former Agricultural Enterprises (IAS) that hold debts to the banks will be excepted from retrocession.
The initiator of Law 1/2000, former PN?CD Deputy Vasile Lupu, told Ziarul Financiar that he would contest the document at the European Council as soon as it is debated by the agriculture panels (most likely next week, according to the President of Senate Agriculture Panel, PDSR Senator Victor Postolache).
Lupu argues that this document “excepts from retrocession” about two thirds of the former land owners, while the compensations “invented” by the Government are worthless as long as most state-owned companies are almost bankrupt.
PNL leaders also disagree with Government’s intentions. According to them, the Executive would therefore claim that it has achieved both land reform and the “so-called privatisation.”
“We now realise why the Government is deferring privatisation. They are waiting for the law to be issued in order to pseudo-privatise this way,” PNL Senator Gheorghe Flutur said on Wednesday.
UDMR Senator Eckstein-Kovacs Peter says that such compensations might be accepted if the Government allows the recipients to invest in profitable companies, “such as Petrom,” so that “the interests of former landowners should not be harmed.”