{"id":156914,"date":"2024-12-11T20:42:05","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T10:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/?p=58473"},"modified":"2024-12-11T20:42:05","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T10:42:05","slug":"illegal-state-aid-is-continuing-in-romania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=156914","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Illegal state aid is continuing in Romania\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The situation concerning rail freight in Romania continues to be controversial regarding the transition from soon-to-be bankrupt state-owned operator CFR Marf\u0103 to the newly established Carpatica Feroviar Romania (CF). According to Simona Istrate, director of Romania\u2019s private rail association OPSFPR, a new wave of illegal state aid is on the horizon with \u201ca draft law to be approved in urgent procedure to increase the share capital (of CF, ndr) by 300 million euro\u201d.<\/strong><br \/>\n<span id=\"more-58473\"><\/span>CF was officially founded in October to replace CFR Marf\u0103 after the European Commission found that the company enjoyed illegal state aid which distorted the market. Unable to pay the debt back, CFR Marf\u0103 had to be discontinued. However, the transition will see the new entity taking over everything but \u201cthe obligation to repay the unlawful state aid\u201d, and might even receive some as well, Istrate told RailFreight.com.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"readmore\">\n<div class=\"readmore-item\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/business\/2024\/11\/19\/fear-of-illegalities-remains-in-romanias-rail-freight-relay\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/15537354796_9b1755d60e_o-128x128.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"readmore-thumbnail\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"readmore-info\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/business\/2024\/11\/19\/fear-of-illegalities-remains-in-romanias-rail-freight-relay\/\" class=\"readmore-title\">Fear of illegalities remains in Romania\u2019s rail freight relay<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The 300 million euros increase proposed in the draft law should be used by CF to purchase assets from its predecessor, she claimed. These include \u201clocomotives, wagons, fixed assets, inventory items, land and buildings necessary for the maintenance and repair of rolling stock purchased directly from CFR Marf\u0103\u201d.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>This measure represents a new illegal state aid, this time benefiting CF. This transfer will circumvent the principle of economic discontinuity.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In other words, Romanian authorities are trying \u201cto get rid of the provisions of the European Commission, which in 2020 issued the decision to recover the illegal state aid granted to CFR Marf\u0103\u201d, Istrate said. This is highlighted by the fact that the draft law states that CF will take over CFR Marf\u0103\u2019s transport contracts as well, she pointed out.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"readmore\">\n<div class=\"readmore-item\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/business\/2024\/10\/17\/romanias-controversial-plan-to-save-state-rail-freight\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/shutterstock_2508816309-128x128.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"readmore-thumbnail\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"readmore-info\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/business\/2024\/10\/17\/romanias-controversial-plan-to-save-state-rail-freight\/\" class=\"readmore-title\">Romania\u2019s controversial plan to save state rail freight<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<h2>From CFR Marf\u0103 to Carpatica Feroviar Romania<\/h2>\n<p>CFR Marf\u0103\u2019s last profitable year was 2007. The official liquidation is scheduled for March next year, once CF is expected to start operations. However CF needs to first acquire rolling stock. According to Istrate, this process should have been carried out through a public tender, but the new draft law seems to say otherwise. \u201cThe rail freight community is concerned about this new approach\u201d, she stressed.<\/p>\n<p>What is happening in Romania is quite similar to the situation in France, despite the paths being slightly different. In both cases, the state-owned rail freight operators have been discontinued and will be replaced by new entities. However, the new companies replacing French Fret SNCF will lose 20 per cent of the volumes, which were distributed among private operators. In Romania, the replacement seems to be coming with no consequences.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"readmore\">\n<div class=\"readmore-item\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/business\/2024\/11\/15\/dismantling-fret-sncf-wont-solve-state-aid-issue\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Fret-SNCF-shunter-128x128.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"readmore-thumbnail\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"readmore-info\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/business\/2024\/11\/15\/dismantling-fret-sncf-wont-solve-state-aid-issue\/\" class=\"readmore-title\">&#8216;Dismantling Fret SNCF won&#8217;t solve state aid issue&#8217;<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cIn this scenario, private operators remain the only ones affected by the non-implementation of the recovery decision and the Romanian rail freight market continues to suffer the consequences of the same unfair practices, by setting up this rudimentary and completely unlawful mechanism proposed by the Romanian authorities\u201d, Istrate concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The situation concerning rail freight in Romania continues to be controversial regarding the transition from soon-to-be bankrupt state-owned operator CFR Marf\u0103 to the newly established\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13964,14721,13681,14722,11313,11785,47,3341,14723],"tags":[12634],"class_list":["post-156914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-carpatica-feroviar","category-cf","category-cfr-marfa","category-illegal-state-aid","category-in-depth","category-opsfpr","category-rail-news","category-romania","category-simona-istrate","tag-railfreight"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=156914"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157541,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156914\/revisions\/157541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=156914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=156914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=156914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}