The government has taken full responsibility for the law of retrocession

The government yesterday assumed responsibility before the Parliament, for the new version of the restitution of the plots of land and the immovables which were abusively seized by the former communist regime, after weeks of talks, interventions in the European Court of Human Rights and threats of a vote of no-confidence.

186 parliamentarians did not participate in the session for the meeting of the assuming of the responsibility, as there are voices which claim that the new form of the law will be rejected by the ECHR and the Constitutional Court.

It took just a few hours after the government took responsibility for the new law for the unfavorable reactions to appear, from former owners who contested the decision of the government as well as from the opposition of the parliamentary groups of the PDL and Forţa Civică (Civic Force) parties.

The leader of the PDL, Vasile Blaga, yesterday announced that despite the fact that he was unable to count on the support of the UDMR and PPDD for the vote of no-confidence on the law of restitutions, he will continue to dispute it.

He said that Prime Minister Victor Ponta has expressed his commitment for the law of compensations to former owners in a "perfectly demagogical style", because this will leave to the coming governments to deal with the issue, specifically after the elections of 2016, and he added that the PDL will dispute the draft law at the Constitutional Court.

Prime Minister Victor Ponta also reacted to the statements of the leader of the PDL, and called his attempt to go to the Constitutional Court as one of the most reckless acts in politics of the last 23 years.

The Prime Minister said that the PDL is the only political party which should stay away from the issue during this period, for all the frauds and thefts it committed between 2009 and 2011: "If the people of the PDL were so smart, why didn't they deal with this problem in 2010, 2011, 2012? That would mean starting to pay 8 billion Euros, does Blaga have 8 billion Euros to give tomorrow?"

The action of Blaga is currently backed by the leader of the "Forţa Civică", Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu, who contested the new law claiming it is unconstitutional and it favors the buyers of litigious rights.

Also, Ungureanu accuses the government that it disregarded the observations it received from the ECHR, which were supposed to clarify the text of the law.

The former prime-minister Emil Boc nu also expressed his discontent on the manner the law of restitutions was handled, and said that this is an attempt to postpone the payment of the compensation until 2017, when Victor Ponta will no longer be part of the Government.

The associations of former owners are also among those who dispute the new law, and they have repeatedly said that they will challenge this initiative through all the means available.

According to their statements, "all the provisions are consistent in the attempt to dally, the attempt to postpone the applications for requests, and especially the effective payment of the compensations, that is because the effective responsibility will belong to the future government, following the model of French king Louis 15th, < < After me, the deluge > >".

The text of the law saw several amendments added following the meeting of the prime-minister Victor Ponta with the members of the parliamentary parties, as well as with representatives of the religious cults.

The government has also received some amendments from the PDL and Forţa Civică political parties which PM Victor Ponta called "absolutely shameful" and which he said even showed "a communist-like approach" of the issue of restitutions.

• The restitution of the grazing grounds must be approved by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MADR)

One of the most important amendments concerns the legal status of the plots of land which are part of the communal grazing grounds, which can be granted to the former owners if the restitution of the original location is not possible.

According to the amendment created by the government, the former owner receiving the right of ownership property will no longer be legally prohibited from changing the use of the returned plot of land. The beneficiary will be required to obtain a prior license to from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MADR) which will allow them to change the legal status of the grazing grounds.

The initial draft stipulated that the owners would be required to maintain the intended destination of the grazing grounds that was returned, and stipulated that the legal status of the grazing ground could only be changed using the agreement of the citizens with the right to vote, through a referendum.

• The rent to be paid to the former owners of a hospital/school, to be set based on the market value of the building

The change concerning the rent which the Government will be required to pay to former owners that will receive, through restitution, buildings which host hospitals or schools, it will be set based on the market value of the building, rather than as a fixed amount, as previously stipulated in the Government decision.

• The UMDR, included in the commissions for drawing up the listing of the plots of land locally

Another text clarification, proposed by the parliamentary group of the UDMR, stipulates that the issuing of the deeds of ownership will be suspended until the completion of an inventory on a local level of the number of private and public plots of land that could be the object of restitutions.

Also, the number of members of the National Commission that is evaluating the compensation decisions has been once again supplemented at the request of the UDMR, with a representative of the Department for Interethnic Relations of the General Secretariat of the Government.

The new draft law stipulates that the former owners of the nationalized houses that can't be compensated in kind will receive points with a face value of 1 leu, based on the value of the immovable, which they will be able to use for buying other immovables in auctions, or to redeem them for money, but only starting in 2017. The number of points which the former owners will be allowed to redeem for cash will not be allowed to exceed 14% of the total number of points per year.