STORMY MEETING WITH THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE AND THE ANRP Former property owners, faced with the newly announced restitution law

• The associations have requested the withdrawal of the draft law concerning the restitution of properties

• Dorina Danielescu, ANRP: The talks were constructive

An extremely stormy talk took place yesterday between the representatives of the former owners and the authorities, which have proposed the capping of the compensation for owners whose assets were abusively seized by the communist regime at 15% of the real value of the asset.

Present at the meeting were Dorina Danielescu, the chairwoman of the National Authority for the Restitution of Properties (ANRP) Gheorghe Gherghina, state secretary in the Ministry of Finance.

Adrian Iuraşcu, the representative of the former property owners, said that the talks were extremely stormy and that he has requested the total cancellation of the draft law, rather than its amendment.

He also said that he has notified the National Council For Fighting Discrimination on the matter of the draft law.

Adrian Iuraşcu also said that on Friday, at 14:00, the former asset owners will return to the Ministry of Finance to be told whether the draft law will be pulled or not. If the government stands by its proposal, Mr. Iuraşcu said that the former owners will sue the Romanian state, including by going to the ECHR.

He also said: "The president of the ANRP and the Secretary of State in the Ministry of Finance, Gheorghe Gherghina, have said that the draft law has been written by amateurs".

Dorina Danielescu said that even though the talks were heated, they were also constructive: "The associations came with objections, proposals and amendments to the law. They will be centralized and analyzed by the Ministry Committee in order to amend the draft law".

Even though the consultation with the former asset owners was scheduled for 15:00, the Government debated the draft project of the law in its meeting which was held yesterday morning. However, the government has postponed this project, as it felt that it required more attention. Several lawyers feel that the draft law proposed by the government is discriminatory and shameful.

The ECHR has required Romania to make the compensation process more efficient by summer. The Government has suspended the payment of compensation for six months, after it no longer had the option of granting stock in the Proprietatea Fund.

• The grievances of the victims

The owner associations consider that the solutions proposed by the Inter-Ministry Committee are "unacceptable", because they do not meet the recommendations of the pilot decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) nor to the case law instituted by its courts. More specifically, the representatives of the associations of former owners consider that the solutions do not speed up the process for the restitution of properties and for the compensation of lawful owners, leading to new unjustified postponements, do not keep a balance between the interests of the former owners and the general interest of the communities nor do they explicitly and "severely" sanction the public institutions involved in the process, which are unduly dragging their feet in the implementation of the mandatory legislative procedures. Furthermore, the draft law presents inaccurate figures when presenting the amounts required for the compensations and doubles the legal compliance control already exerted by the entities legally habilitated to deal with the notifications, unduly granting additional competences to the National Authority for the Restitution of Properties (ANRP), thus making the restitution process even harder and lengthier, they said. Also, the proposal to make the law retroactive violates the principle of art. 1 of the Civil Code of Law, hitting exclusively the honest asset owners who completed the procedures which were required by law or who have obtained the confirmation of their rights through irrevocable court rulings, the press release states.

Thus, the Associations request that the restitution in kind be kept in place, in the case of immovable assets which can be restituted according to the Law no. 10/2001, or through court rulings. They also want the maintenance of the compensation in kind by compensation through the restitution of buildings of equivalent value owned by the Agency of State Assets (ADS) and the Public Corporation - The Administration of the State Owned Protocol (RAPPS). If compensation in kind at the market determined through the appraisal report is not possible, alternative compensation is suggested, in the form of cash or of shares in Companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE) or other services of the petitioner's choosing without a capping of the amount. The Associations consider that the ANRP has no reason to exist, since it is an institution which places a heavy burden on the state budget, slows down the compensation of those entitled to it and which "should not be granted discretionary control rights". The control of the local entities which have been granted the rights to solve the requests of the former owners must be reinforced by law using the already existing institutions, such as the courts, the prosecutors' office or the National Anticorruption Department (DNA), the representatives of the Associations said. They feel that retroactivity is not justifiable in the case of any new legislative provision, because such a solution creates a dangerous unconstitutional precedent "and is particularly unfair". The associations request that all the reparations in cash be paid with priority to the individual owners, as they would place the least burden on the state budget. The associations insist that the plan to cap and drag out the payment of the compensations should be abandoned, because it would "severely" discriminate against two categories of persons entitled to receive their acknowledged rights. The associations are requesting transparency in the application of the procedures, the introduction of sanctions for the authorities which delay, procrastinate or boycott the restitution process or the compensation of the lawful owners, including by demanding the personal liability of their employees and public servants in charge of their operation, as well as the setting of short deadlines for the quick compensation of those entitled to it.