English• Local and county councils will receive over 400000 hectares of land (from the public and private sector of the state) worth over 1 billion Euros
• Members of the parliament want to change the law of the Agricultural Real Estate to eliminate the tax for withdrawing land from agricultural use
The time for rewards is here. Local barons of PSD and PD-L, those who backed the current "coalition for the country" now residing in the Victoria Palace with money and votes are getting their well deserved reward.
Lacking money, the Government came up with a new solution to reward those who backed it with votes and funding for last year"s elections: offer farming land managed by the state, with an estimated value estimated to be at least 1 billion Euros.
A golden investment, even though the real estate market has crashed.
Plots in the public and private property of the state are managed by the Ministry of Agriculture, through its State Domains Agency (ADS).
The agency handles and exploits 405000 hectares of land, with around 220000 hectares from the public domain, having a sizeable potential.
Upon pressure from the local barons, one of the first measures announced by the Minister of Agriculture appointed by PSD, Ilie Sârbu, upon taking over his position, was therefore to eliminate the State Domains Agency.
Local and county councils have often filed complaints that the agricultural real estate they were managing is not enough for the investment request or for the development projects.
And Sârbu stated that "the persons who committed political abuse must step down", referring to the real estate deals that ADS made with the State"s land, in the past.
The government decided that this institution, tasked with restitutions towards their various political "clients", as the minister hinted, must disappear.
The decision to disband the State Domains Agency was included in a vast project for the decentralization and internal reorganization of the Ministry of Agriculture, in a rush, just as the spring harvest comes knocking.
Under the pretense of administrative decentralization, the Government is mainly looking to transfer plots of land from the public and private domain of the state, administered by the State Domains Agency, over to that of the Local and County Councils.
According to our sources, a round of debates took place yesterday dealing with the draft of a law for disbanding the Agency.
According to an official document, the county and local councils will take over the "activities for managing, administering, exploitation lease and purchase" of farming lands, but only after a study on the effects of this measure will be made.
Sources in the management of the Ministry of Agriculture claim that the entire process for the reorganization of the Ministry is only looking to transfer land ownership over to the regional "barons".
Under the protection of anonymity, sources stated: "We are just
This is a godsend for the local barons who will thus be able to juggle the lands they received, according to their interests, just to help the socio-economic development of their cities, "obviously".
As we know, Romania"s farming land is extremely attractive because of the quality of its topsoil, of the vast areas available, and of the prices below the EU average.
Investing in farming land continues to be extremely profitable, and will be a way for the local barons to make easy money.
The scheme is known: the plots of land will be easier to transfer into the private domain for any kind of deal with a lot ease; lands outside the built up areas will be more easily designated as such, in order to increase their value, and attracting investors will most likely bring with it the well deserved reward.
Right now, prices for agricultural land are low, but it is estimated that three years from now, their value will reach the average European price of 6000 Euros per hectare.
The fate of the agricultural research stations and the companies for the distribution of agricultural produce (which lie on these surfaces with a huge real estate potential, without deed of ownership) as soon as they go under the control of the local administrations, is still unclear.
The experience of the prior years, including the attempts of the Tăriceanu government to relocate all the research stations through an emergency ordnance, speaks volumes, and the way that most of them were vandalized, is nothing new.
To put the icing on the cake, the Agricultural Commission of the Deputies Chamber will discuss this year, the amendment of the Law of Agricultural Real Estate.
Unsurprisingly, the law is being pushed forward by the deputies of the PSD and PD-L.
The reasons for the requested elimination of the tax levied for withdrawing land from farming and forestry use, are the following: first of all, the built-up areas available have considerably shrunk, the plots of land outside the built-up areas are needed for new constructions; and second, members of the Parliament of PSD and PD-L claim that the quantum of this tax is too big, generating corruption and tax evasion.
It has to be said that this tax goes to a special budget for improving the agricultural real estate. Over 24 million Euros were collected in 2008 for this fund (around 6 million euros).
At the time a certain plot of land is be withdrawn from agricultural use, these funds would be invested in exhausted plots, to keep the balance of the farming real estate.
Removing this tax would substantially decrease the number of farming areas and would discriminate in favor of the land buyers (therefore, the political clientele, at least in some cases, if not in all of them).
Together with the reduction of farming surfaces, the food safety of the country will be jeopardized, and just a food crisis is looming.
The Government, who will be the one to decide on the transfer of the areas it is managing, over to the local administrations, will not be considered liable once the transfer happens, as managing those lands will no longer be its responsibility.
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