2024-09-13 02:59:31
With ten votes “For” and 4 “Abstentions”, the members of the Standing Parliamentary Committee on Economic Policy and Innovations voted on the first reading of the Draft Law on Amendments and Supplements to the Investment Promotion Act submitted by the Council of Ministers.
The petitioners’ reasons say that the proposals for changes to the Investment Promotion Law (IPL) reflect changes to the General Block Exemption Regulation, with certain texts being clarified to comply with the provisions of the Regulation.
The bill was presented by Vesselina Mincheva, Acting Deputy Minister of Innovation and Growth.
The People’s Representative from the GERB-SDS group, Alexander Ivanov, criticized the authors by saying that the texts submitted now do not take into account the fact that the bill in its part from paragraphs 1 to 6 had already been considered and adopted in a second vote in the Chamber, as the only President Rumen Radev’s veto stopped the voted changes from entering into force.
“On the one hand, the ministry re-introduces texts for a second vote, and with a large majority in the hall. You did not take this into account and re-introduced the texts you previously introduced in the first reading,” the GERB-SDS deputy pointed out. “Again, the aid is brought in to be increased, with the deductible being reduced from 40 to 25 percent. In 49 HC, you did not provide the requested information about your correspondence with the EC and what necessitated the change. I do not see how even if there is time left it will be supported in its entirety, as you proposed it again. You also insert new definitions into the Law on Public Enterprises, and I don’t know why you do it in the ZNI. You insert again texts that were rejected or reworked in the Chamber”.
In connection with the change in the definition of public enterprises, a topic that was also raised by PP-DB MP Martin Dimitrov, Deputy Minister Mincheva said the following: “The change concerns only the definition of the outdated, in our opinion, concept of sole proprietorships, which at the present time it is not up-to-date, because not only sole proprietorships offer their lands for sale or for the establishment of real rights to encourage investors”.
In response to the question of why a text is being proposed again to reduce the deductible from 40 to 25 percent, Veselina Mincheva announced that new circumstances have occurred in recent months that explain the actions of the importers, writes BTA.
“Meanwhile, after the adoption and approval of the 49 National Assembly Bill, new events have taken place. One of them is the change in the state aid intensity approved by the EC. We received a letter from the EC in July saying that there are new intensities of aid, such as in the municipalities of Yambol, Tunja, Elhovo, the amount of intensity is already 70 percent, which means that the state has the right to support 70 percent intensity of investors in these municipalities. If we leave the law in its current form, it will come into direct contradiction and introduce additional barriers for a measure that has been approved by the EC,” she explained.
Vesselina Mincheva also defended the proposals regarding the changes in the definitions around industrial parks on the grounds that according to the current legislation, support is only permissible for industrial parks, and industrial zones and technological parks and the possibility of promoting investments in them are left outside the scope of the norms.
In response to a question from the MP from the “Vazrazhdane” group, Kliment Shopov, regarding the reasons for dropping the concept of professional qualification and introducing a new concept of “training” in the measures to support the provision of qualified personnel, Deputy Minister Mincheva explained that until at the moment, the professional qualification measure has not been applied even once to an investor.
“The test does not work, which means that we have to make a qualitative change and we see it in providing an opportunity within the current amount of 3 million euros to train persons related to a specific investment project”.
Alexander Ivanov invited Deputy Minister Mincheva, in case the Bill is brought to the floor, the MIR to provide information to the members of the commission which necessitates the need to reduce the self-participation of companies from 40 to 25 percent for the acquisition of tangible and intangible assets, together with their communication with the EC, secondly information on why they introduce a different definition in the Law on Public Enterprises and thirdly – why they introduce a different definition in relation to the Law on Industrial Parks.
The members of the commission rejected another Bill to supplement and amend the ZNI, introduced by PP-DB MP Daniel Laurer, concerning the introduction of a ban on the application of investment promotion measures to persons who have been subject to international restrictive measures. The draft proposal was supported by four voters, three abstained and another four were against.