PM Orban, on VAT reduction: PNL only endorses drafts voted in party's Executive Bureau

Prime Minister Ludovic Orban said the National Liberal Party (PNL) doesn't endorse the draft on the VAT reduction, currently in parliamentary debate, pointing out that the draft, even if initiated by a Liberal, wasn't supported in the party's Executive Bureau. "It isn't a PNL draft, it is a draft initiated by an MP, it is a huge difference between the drafts initiated by MPs, individually, and the PNL drafts. According to the statutory procedure, a draft to be endorsed by the PNL needs to be analysed first, then to get a favourable opinion from the party's specialist committees and finally to get the party's Executive Bureau's approval. (...) The PNL only endorses those drafts observing the support procedure and having been voted in the Executive Bureau, as such, we won't vote for a draft, even if it belongs to one colleague of ours, who initiated a draft law as an MP, individually, and not on behalf of the PNL," Ludovic Orban said at the Elisabeta Palace on Tuesday, when asked who the Liberals would vote on Wednesday in the Chamber of Deputies on the draft regarding the VAT cut. PM Orban had a meeting with Romanian Crown Custodian Margareta at the Elisabeta Palace on Tuesday. The legislative proposal on the reduction of the VAT standard quota from 19pct to 16pct as of 1 January 2020 received a favourable report from the budget finance committee of the Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday. AGERPRES (RO - author: Daniel Alexandru Florea, editor: Mihai Simionescu; EN - author: Adina Panaitescu, editor: Cristina Zaharia)