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Senate rejects President's re-examination request of Memorandum between state and Rompetrol Group
Romania's Senate rejected on Wednesday, in its plenum, Romania's President, Traian Basescu, request referring to the re-examination of the Memorandum of Understanding concluded between the Romanian state and Rompetrol Group N.V., signed in Bucharest on February 15, 2013.
As such, the Report on admission of the bill was adopted, as well as the rejection of the re-examination request, with 79 votes in favor, 17 votes against and 8 abstentions. The Senate is the decisional Chamber.
The Committee on budget, finance, banking and capital market and the Committee for privatization and management of state assets have submitted a favorable opinion on the bill, respectively of rejection of the re-examination request.
Also, the Committee for economy, industries and services decided with a majority vote to adopt the report of admission of the bill in the form sent for promulgation and, implicitly , to reject the request for revision.
According to the report of the Committee for economy, industry and services, the bill is part of ordinary laws and was initiated by the Government in compliance with art . 76 para. (3) of the Romanian Constitution, according to which : 'At the request of the Government or on its own initiative , the Parliament may pass the bills or legislative proposals in emergency procedure, as established by each Committee's regulation .'
'Initiating the project had as a reason the complex character of the transaction covered by the Memorandum of Understanding , by which it is secured the compliance by the Rompetrol Group N.V. of commitments on the stock purchase, regulation of principles of setting up an investment fund in the energy field, as well as settling disputes between the Ministry of Public Finance and the Rompetrol Group N.V. ' , says the review request of the President of Romania, Traian Basescu.
According to the document , 'The law under review has an individual character, being designed not for its application to an unlimited number of individual cases, but in a single case expressly devised for carrying out the transaction with Rompetrol Group N.V.' .
' This legislative solution does not cover a general social relationship, but a prior understanding , that is an agreement at will between the Rompetrol Group N.V. and the government ', says the review request.
The law has as its object the approval of the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Romanian state as the owner of shares held in the SC Rompetrol Rafinare SA and the Rompetrol Group N.V. .
The two sides assumed a commitment to purchase from the Rompetrol Group N.V. a minority share package accounting for approximately 26.6959 percent of the share capital of SC Rompetrol Rafinare SA , currently owned by the Office of State Participations and Privatization in Industry ( OPSPI ) in exchange for 200 million dollars.
The sides agree to constitute a Kazakh - Romanian investment fund in the form of a society with the following shareholders: 80 percent - the Rompetrol Group and 20 percent the Romanian state, set to invest in projects in the field of energy.