The Unfair Commercial Practices Directive will be implemented in Romania with the purpose of perpetuating unfair commercial practices against the legitimate interests of agri-food producers, according to the PRO AGRO National Federation, in a press release sent to AGERPRES on Tuesday evening.
"The PRO AGRO National Federation, organization representative of all production sectors in Agriculture, Food Industry and Related Services in Romania, informs member organizations, but also their members, regarding the draft law Plx 178, draft which was voted in the select committees within the Chamber of Deputies, in a form in which the purpose of the EU 633/2019 Directive is not met, but moreso, the Romanian lawmaker chose to enact against the interests of local producers. This statement comes in the context in which, through the Law that will implement the above mentioned Directive, the buyers will be allowed to deduct from food's acquisition price, unilaterally, discretionary, various percentages from the value of goods by applying commercial discounts named in the Fiscal Procedure Code as "ristourne", "rebates," the press release mentions.
According to PRO AGRO, seeing that "ristournes and rebates" represent marketing services, multiple placement or other actions that are unilaterally established by retail for the supplier's products with the purpose of stimulating sales and shelf rotation, services that are not requested or decided by the supplier of these goods, these should be assigned, from a fiscal standpoint, in the category of services rendered, applying a 19% VAT for these sums, not 9%, like in the case of agri-food products.
In this context, although the PRO AGRO National Federation will continue its legal actions before the European Commission, the employers' organization considers that the option of legislative draft which will be sent for approval will diminish chances of eliminating this type of unfair practice from the transposition act.
"Seeing that hypermarkets have a market share of over 80% in the profile market, that their practice is establishing and capping sale price, many times under the production cost of the supplier, we consider necessary for investors to have an increased caution in the primary agri-food production, the incidence legislation, including Law 321/2009 regarding marketing these food items, cannot guarantee an equitable commercial report, and at this moment we cannot be optimistic regarding the direction of this state of affairs," the PRO AGRO press release mentions.
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