FACIAS draws attention to the fact that Romania risks paying tens of millions of euros in EU sanctions as a result of not transposing European directives within the given timeframe.
The current state of obsolete European transposition deadlines is alarming. Romania is currently facing many infringement cases for the approximately 30 directives that were required to be completely translated into domestic legislation two years ago and for which Romanians will be responsible for the EU fines.
The Romanian state paid three million euros to the European Commission for a single non-implemented directive, representing the requirement to pay in case C-549/18 - the infringement action triggered by the non-transposition of the EU directive 2015/849 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purpose of money laundering or terrorist financing.
According to a report released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, five more directives are currently being investigated for infringement, for which Romania might face fines of hundreds of millions of euros.
Romania must implement 18 new directives by 2022, and if Romanian officials do not come up with appropriate measures and hold the guilty accountable, Romanians will be paying for all of these fines.
However, massive fines are not the only expense the Romanians must undertake. Several directives that may have given Romanians a variety of rights have yet to be approved. One of these directives could have come to the aid of consumers, for which FACIAS requested the urgent transposition of Directive 2019/2061 of November 27, 2019, which allows Romanians to request remedial actions in the event of abusive provisions imposed by traders.
FACIAS has requested the Prime Minister to establish who is responsible for the failure to implement Directive 2019/2061, which would have made a significant contribution to consumer protection by allowing Romanian residents to seek redress if traders imposed unfair conditions.