The Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) will table a bill keeping state control over public enterprises, thus protecting them from hostile takeovers, the party’s MEP, Gheorghe Piperea, announced on Tuesday.

The bill will be submitted by the AUR floor leaders in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, Petrisor Peiu and Mihai Enache, Piperea said.

„We are preparing a bill that Professor Peiu and Mihai Enache will respectively submit to Parliament in September, regarding the protection of public enterprises against hostile takeovers and against the takeover of the control package from the Romanian state to other entities, private or less private. (…) The bill says that, if there is an enterprise that is still under state control, the control is kept, because it is an activity that is part of the national strategy,” Pipera added.

According to him, it is a strategic area of the national economy, part of the national critical infrastructure.

„There will no longer be the possibility of ceding control from the Romanian state. Listing is possible, but that means small packages put on the stock exchange and made available to retail investors. In the event that we have a company over which the majority shareholder wants to cede control to a third party, a right of pre-emption of the state is established.”

The bill also says that state aid will no longer be given to these enterprises from non-returnable funds.

„The French grant state aid in the form of loans, usually convertible into shares or bonds convertible into shares. (…) Romanian citizens will also be made available such a possibility, because bonds will be issued that will be used to finance these enterprises, because they are important, they are strategic. In their turn, the Romanian citizens will be able to decide whether to receive money in seven years, plus interest, or to become a shareholder in the enterprise that has been listed in the meantime,” the MEP said.

AGERPRES