OPEN LETTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER
Dear Prime Minister,
The Foundation for the Defense of Citizen Against State Abuses (FACIAS) asks you to identify the responsible persons for the non-implementation to date of the European Directive 2019/2061 of 27 November 2019, which would have made a major contribution to consumer protection by giving Romanian citizens the possibility to seek redress for unfair terms imposed by traders.
As you probably know, the deadline for transposing this Directive into national law was 28 November 2021, when the new legal rules should have been adopted. More than two months later, we are only just at the point where the draft law is in public debate.
The adoption and entry into force of these new rules would have helped to provide the legislative framework that would allow tougher sanctions to economic operators for imposing unfair terms in framework contracts.
The responsibility for drafting the bill for transposing Directive 2019/2061 into national law lies with the Ministry of Economy, the same ministry which today is obliged to protect consumers from the huge number of illegal electricity and gas bills. The aim of the above-mentioned directive is precisely to introduce sanctions that are truly effective and proportionate to unfair commercial practices and that discourage and severely punish breaches of trader-consumer rules, which would also have had an effect on electricity and gas suppliers.
Given the seriousness of the situation and the damage caused to Romanian citizens, FACIAS asks you to identify and publicly present the list of those responsible for the delay in transposing Directive 2019/2061 into national law, as well as the sanctions applied to them.
Mr. Prime Minister,
Those responsible for this delay must be held accountable! In the current context, in the absence of this legislation, the state institutions responsible for consumer protection have had less effective tools at their disposal to protect consumers from unfair commercial practices and to discourage such unfair behaviour in the future in the relationship between traders and consumers.
In addition, the procedure for implementing European directives into national legislation is dramatic, with Romania being one of the EU countries with the most warnings and letters of formal notice from the European Commission for non-compliance with EU legislative standards.
We look forward to your public response.
THE FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF CITIZEN
AGAINST STATE ABUSES