Romanian Beer Law Sent Back To Chamber Budget Committee

The Romanian Chamber of Deputies on Monday decided, at the proposal of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), to send the beer law, which stipulates facilities for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the field, back to the Chamber's budget-finance committee.

Social democrat deputy Aura Vasile requested the draft law be sent back to the specialized committee in order to be amended with a proposal submitted by the Finance Ministry. The proposal was supported by democrat liberal lawmakers.

In turn, Hungarian deputy Lakatos Petru said the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) will vote against adopting the law, citing the lack of research on its impact on the state budget and the European Union’s uncertain standpoint with respect to this law.


The beer law, which stipulates tax exemptions for SMEs in the beer industry whose output capacity is lower than 200,000 hl per year, was sent to Romanian President Traian Basescu for promulgation on November 30, 2006. Basescu, in turn, sent the law back to Parliament in early February 2007.

In late March 2009, the Senate adopted a favorable report on the beer law, which was re-examined at Basescu’s request, but the senators did not amend the aspects highlighted by the President in his request.

On June 12, deputies rejected the beer law. Subsequently, the draft law was put on the Chamber’s agenda for further debates and the final voting, but afterwards it was sent back to the budget-finance committee for an additional report in this respect.