The Minister of Economy, Virgil Popescu, said on Thursday that Law 173/2020, by which the Parliament forbade the Government, for a period of two years, the sale of state-owned shares in companies and implicitly the privatization of Hidroelectrica, must be amended.

“It is about that famous law – 173/2020, by which the Parliament, for a period of two years, forbade the Government to sell state participations, held by the state in companies. And by the interpretation of the Constitutional Court, state participation also means shares and assets. What is happening, what is the poisoned apple and what problems will we have if we do not correct this law quickly? We have in the defense industry, on ordinance 6, approved restructuring programs, we are talking about the alienation of certain assets, some social assets. Then, at CE Oltenia we have an extraordinary number of social assets, we have churches, we have cemeteries, we have canteens for which amortization is still paid, taxes are paid, but which do not bring any income, they are included in the restructuring program. At Nuclearelectrica, we have a memorandum by which we want an integrated circuit of electricity production from a nuclear point of view and based on this memorandum the power plant at Feldioara must be sold to Nuclearelectrica. All these things are blocked by this law, which, in my opinion, does a lot of harm,” said Popescu, at the beginning of the Government meeting.

“I would like to proceed to change it, I do not want to assume (government responsibility), we have appealed to the Constitutional Court, but I would not want to assume through the Government that we suspend the law or something similar, that would be completely unconstitutional, but I would like to assume the amendment of this law, let’s just talk clearly about actions until we clarify the whole problem, but let’s not block, because we will completely block the activity of companies,” he stated.