The Duty-Free Persecution

On Saturday, during the Government meeting, the Minister of Administration and Internal Affairs, Vasile Blaga, has announced he will explicitly ask for the closing of the terrestrial duty-free shops.

CYCLE. Once every political regime change, the duty-free shops become a target.

The reason of this extreme proposal, which is to be regulated in approximately one-month time, is the appearance of certain information according to which, at Stamora Moravita and Drobeta Turnu-Severin, the duty-free shops encourage contraband. The Tax-Free Romanian Association (TFRA), member of the Tax-Free World Association, reacted immediately and, with the help of a press release, expressed its "astonishment and disappointment" regarding the "political statement of Mr. Vasile Blaga, Internal Affairs Minister, during the Government meeting on Saturday, the 26th of March 2005".

CONTROLS. Lawyer Gheorghe Toniuc, TFRA president, states that the sayings of Mr. Blaga will "seriously affect the trust in the financial-banking, operational, and even in the stock exchange environment where the companies that have duty-free operations in Romania". During the approximately 10 years of activity the 100 shops in this field, that have more than 2,500 employees, have been visited by more than 10 million travelers. "All this time, authorities representing the Finance Ministry, the Internal Affairs Ministry and others have performed more than 3,500 control operations, and, as far as we know, none of them resulted in any Court order to support the contraband accusations", the quoted document also reads. Gheorghe Toniuc expressed his belief that, "if there were any contraband actions, the authorities and the judicial system in Romania would fulfill their duties, and the guilty ones would be submitted to the Court".

REGULATION. The Law no. 132 in 2003, approved by the Parliament and promulgated by the President in accordance to the international similar agreements that Romania adhered to, regulates the duty-free activity. The over 100 awarded licenses - which were the aim of the conjugated approvals emitted by high governmental functionaries and signed by the Minister of the Public Finances - have pre-established expiry dates. They form the target of an agreement of Romania, as well as of the ministerial and civil responsibility.

SUPPORT, NOT OPPOSITION. "In the perspective of Romania’s adherence to the EU, the interests of the industries in this field from the neighbor countries are unfavorable to the functioning of the Romanian system", the TFRA communiqué says.

In the given context, the Association publicly asks the Minster of Internal Affairs and, generally, the Romanian Government to support "the harmonization of the domain’s development strategy with the one of the countries in the region, in the perspective of the EU adherence agreements".