The Road Transport Employers Association demanded to urgently modify the budgetary-fiscal policy by introducing instruments for stimulating the road passenger transportation sector from financial and fiscal viewpoints. The Association sent a letter to the senior state administration, the parliamentary commissions and groups. The carriers also demand to adopt administrative measures to terminate the public-private partnership contract for the use of the property of state-owned bus terminals, to stop the abuses of fiscal bodies and to enforce the law norms by which the terminals renting business is protected, IPN reports.

On December 3, the Council of the Road Transport Employers Association decided that the ignoring of these demands will lead to a general strike of carriers.

The letter says that the passenger transport operators found themselves in a serious situation owing to chronic problems that have been ignored by the authorities during many years. The consequences of these were amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. The transport sector continues to be managed artificially, in the absence of a central specialized body in the field of transport and infrastructure.

The Association demands to restore the Ministry of Transport and Road Infrastructure, to unblock the process of revamping units of transport and to introduce the zero VAT rate on road passenger transportation in the national transport sector.

Another request is to institute a moratorium on the inspections planned by the State Tax Service and the National Road Transport Agency in 2021 and on the surprise inspections of these institutions until June 31, 2021. The carriers ask to exempt them from paying the income tax on entrepreneurial activity in 2020 and 2021 and to compensate 50% of the cost of excise duties on fuel used when providing road passenger transportation services. They also want the road taxes for buses for 2021 to be halved and the debts of the state-run company ÎS “Gările și Stațiile Auto” to be cleared with state budget funds.