What businesspeople ask from EU lawmakers

Candidates at the top of the lists of the main parties to participate Sunday in the elections for the European Parliament have included some of the recommendations proposed by businesspeople and published by Business Standard in their future political agenda in Brussels.

Adrian Severin (Social Democratic Party - PSD), Theodor Stolojan (Democratic-Liberal Party - PDL), and Norica Nicolai (National Liberal Party - PNL) said that they will support infrastructure projects and subsidies for agriculture, and will meet with businesspeople to find out exactly what their needs are. However, politicians were not specific about how they will meet their commitments to the business community. On the other hand, most businesspeople who participated in a survey initiated by Business Standard said that they do not believe that euro parliamentarians kept their past promises, and they do not trust them now to help the Romanian business environment.

Nevertheless, they said they wish to see concrete action, mainly for simplifying the access to European funds and making legislation more efficient. More than one third of the 40 managers interviewed yesterday by Business Standard refused to make any proposals to the candidates or avoided to recommend concrete actions. One quarter said that the priority is to simplify access to structural funds, while one tenth indicated that reducing taxation and bureaucracy is a must.

At the individual level, managers recommended measures such as granting crisis aid and unblocking lending, and suggested that euro parliamentarians lobby for Romania's visibility and for a higher country rating, and bring home information from Brussels. Most specific proposals refer to Romania's position in the negotiations for carbon quotas, promoting the agreement framework for EU level leisure travel, and initiate an anti-monopoly law.

On the other hand, businesspeople say that the European lawmakers must measure the opportunity at every step. " First, the measures that are already being discussed at the European level, such as the growth and stability impact of the Lisbon strategy. There is also the single taxation base, revising VAT, and setting the community budget after 2013. Secondly, we should see which of Romania's requests would be advantageous for us. We have Poland's example, which lobbied for many things. I have not heard anything about Romania," the Secretary General of the Association of Romanian Businesspeople (AOAR), Cristian Parvan, told Business Standard.

Business Standard