English
Romania has already missed out on 30 million Euros from the World Bank, because it did not pass the controversial draft bill which would establish the financial and political autonomy of the Romanian National Securities Commission (CNVM), the Commission for the Surveillance of The Private Pension System (CSSPP) and the Insurance Surveillance Commission (CSA).
At the time of its debate, the draft bill engendered vehement reactions in the market, as its provisions included the fact that the budget of the CNVM would no longer have to be approved by the Parliament, and that the members of the Commission would set their compensation levels themselves.
Market sources that did not disclose their identity warned against the consequences of the failure to pass the law in question: "The independence of the regulators of the non-banking financial markets, - the CNVM, the CSA and the CSSPP is one of the commitments made by the Romanian government to the World Bank, the IMF, and the European Commission, under the terms of the loan that Romania received from these institutions. The Minister of Public Finance confirmed that the World Bank refused to release a 30 million Euros tranche to Romania due to the fact that our country failed to make any progress on the matter of the independence of the regulatory authorities of the financial markets. Right now, the disbursement of a 300 million Euros tranche depends on the passing of this law, for which the deadline was September 30".
Concerned with this situation, as president Traian Băsescu refused the pass the law and sent it back to the parliament for reexamination, the heads of the mission of the IMF, World Bank and the European Commission met on Tuesday with the heads of the CNVM.
Very little information on what was discussed on Tuesday at the CNVM was released to the public.
At the end of the meeting with the commissioners of the CNVM, Jeffrey Franks, the head of the IMF mission for Romania, simply said that "we had a discussion on the topic of the independence of the market regulators which was interesting to both parties". No one can say for sure what the concrete consequences of the failure to pass the draft bill will be.
The draft bill was drawn up in spring 2009 and was sent to the Parliament for approval, at the initiative of the Government. The Senate rejected the project, but the Chamber of Deputies approved in mid-April, this year. The bill returned to the Senate, after president Băsescu requested its reexamination.
The recital of the draft bill specifies that it was created because of the need to establish a legal framework that would provide the CNVM, CSSPP and CSA with the same level of political and financial independence as the NBR. The draft bill comes just as some voices are pushing strongly for giving more power to market oversight institutions, given the ravages of the economic crisis. For instance, one of the most important provisions of the draft bill stipulates that "the staff which has oversight and control attributions will not be liable according to the criminal or common law, if the courts were to find that they failed to perform the oversight and control attributions they were expected to do according to their position, provided this failure was not due to negligence".
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