Romanian Interior minister Vasile Blaga and Finance minister Sebastian Vladescu held a joint press conference on fighting against fiscal fraud and the tobacco traffic. Vladescu said there issues with the "minor" fraud: "The difficult aspect is related to the small fraud, in the markets, where small quantities of products are sold. These are issues connected with education and poverty".

Main statements

Finance minister Sebastian Vladescu:

At this point, besides the measures for the budget deficit, we've got a series of measures in other areas: one is for the reduction of public spending and to decide on cost standards and running models for various state institutions; the other addresses the fight against the fiscal fraud. We are currently leading discussions with the European Commission. The main areas of fiscal fraud are, presently, the entire intra-community commerce, especially food, besides taxable products. Another area where we have taken measures if the intra-community VAT. There are measures to limit the fiscal fraud in the duty-free zone. There is also a set of measures addressing the pass from the area of contravention to offence by trafficking various products. In five months' time, the total additional fiscal obligations found during checks are almost one billion euros. There were 69,000 fines given and security measures worth of 2.7 billion lei were applied. This is only the beginning. All segments involved in the fight against the fiscal fraud decided to show zero tolerance to fiscal fraud. The hardest part is connected with the minor fraud, in markets, where small quantities of products are sold. It is an issue connected with education and poverty. One measure addresses educating citizens. By this I mean educating all citizens. Romania ia an EU state. The taxing policy is decided at the EU level and for as long as we talk ab