EXCLUSIVE The Romanian Government was informed that the decision regarding compensations in the Roșia Montană case will be announced on Friday (sources)

The Romanian Government was informed that the decision regarding compensations in the Roșia Montană case will be communicated on Friday, according to G4Media sources. The Finance Minister announced that the Executive has several options for paying off the debt, including a non-monetary one and an installment payment option.

There is also the possibility of an extraordinary appeal, but this option comes with slim chances of success for the Romanian state, considering that the decision is final and enforceable (it applies from the moment of pronouncement).

However, a possible delay in payment, either due to the appeal or as a result of staggering the amount, raises another problem for the Government: Every day of delay in the debt comes with very high interest rates, given that the amount authorities expect to pay is over 2 billion euros, according to G4Media sources.

What the Finance Minister says

Marcel Boloș declared, at the end of February, that one of the state’s solutions for paying off the debt to Gabriel Resources could be installment payments. Boloș also said that the decision from Roșia Montană and the value of the compensations „sends shivers down any minister’s spine” and that „if it is considered that there is a responsible person, the state bodies will act”.

The Minister also said that Romania might be forced to continue the exploitation at Roșia Montană in the lawsuit that Gabriel Resources filed against the Romanian state at the arbitration court within the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

• „Maybe we will have the surprise of a non-monetary decision,” Boloș said, referring to the possibility that the court’s decision might not include compensations but at the same time oblige the Romanian state to continue the exploitation. The Finance Minister admitted he would „prefer” such a „non-monetary” decision instead of one that imposes compensations on Romania.
• „It’s clear that this non-monetary decision – from a budgetary effort standpoint – would be easier to implement. It might be taken into account that this license for exploiting our gold resource is still in force,” Minister Boloș said. Context

The Canadian company Gabriel Resources claimed, during the arbitration process in Washington, that its investment in Romania was expropriated through several acts of the state authorities, including by politicizing the authorization procedure of the Roșia Montană mining project. G4Media.ro produced a documentary about the key decisions that led to the blocking of the exploitation license at Roșia Montană after the Romanian state issued several decisions appearing to agree with the gold exploitation by the Canadian company.

The documentary was made based on public documents from the ICSID arbitration.

Gabriel Resources identifies the first act of expropriation in August 2011. At that time, the procedure for issuing the environmental agreement or permit for the project was underway at the Ministry of Environment. The project’s assessment was made by a Technical Analysis Commission (TAC), which included representatives from various ministries and authorities.

The procedure began in 2005, with the submission by Roșia Montană Gold Corporation (RMGC) of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Study, but was suspended in 2007 by the Environment Minister at the time, Attila Korodi, for reasons the company claimed were illegal.

In any case, the procedure was resumed in 2010, and by fall 2011, it was in the final stage, with TAC still having to analyze two minor chapters of the EIA Study.

What happened in August 2011? Several politicians publicly stated that the state’s benefits from the mining project were not large enough and that a renegotiation of these benefits with Gabriel Resources, the majority shareholder at RMGC, was necessary.