The ECHR gave Romania until April 12th to find a solution, otherwise, the Court warned, rulings against Romania will be passed in all these cases and the government will be forced to pay huge damages. The Prime Minister explained that the bill relies on three principles: the return of property in kind, wherever this is possible, the granting of financial compensation for a seven-year period and the taxation of rights under litigation by 85%. In the case of buildings that will be returned to their former owners, but which are now used to host schools, hospitals or cultural institutions, the owners will be bound to maintain the destination of the buildings for 20 years.

Under the new bill, where restitution in kind is not possible, the former owners of buildings seized by the communist regime will receive financial compensation, in points with a face value of one leu, which they can use for purchasing real estate put in the market by the government. Prime Minister Ponta warned that authorities will not accept further property claims, because the rightful owners already had 23 years to do that. Moreover, measures will be taken to ensure that the damages reach the former owners and not the middlemen that have turned the restitution process into a source of profits.

Victor Ponta: “We have a duty to return to the rightful owners and to their heirs what the communist state took from them 70 years ago. But we have no obligation whatsoever as to those who have turned this into a business, namely the middlemen that find such heirs and come up with all sorts of documents. Let me tell you one thing: 26,000 owners have so far received around 6.5 million lei in compensations, whereas 1,000 entities that where assigned such property rights under litigation got 8 billion lei.”

So far the Romanian state paid compensations of around 5 billion euros, and has to pay another 16 billion in similar cases.