Ilie Bolojan talks for the first time about the Anastasiu scandal and says what will happen with the reform of the state companies. “It was not a happy episode, but it ended”
Dragoș Anastasiu and Ilie Bolojan, at a press conference on the reform of state -owned companies, at Victoria Palace, July 22, 2025. Photo: Inquam Photos / Mălina Norocea
Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan said, in an interview for G4Media, that he did not know about the bribe that the company of former Deputy Prime Minister Dragoș Anastasiu paid for 8 years to an ANAF inspector, the head of the Government claiming that such practices cannot be admitted. At the same time, the head of the Government announced that there will be no immediately an Anastasiu replacement to take over the reform of the state companies, Bolojan will be in charge of coordinating the collective formed for this project.
Ilie Bolojan said that Dragoș Anastasiu has resigned on Friday, but the decision has been postponed for another two days for evaluating the consequences.
“It was not a happy episode, but it ended”
“This episode was not a happy one for Mr. Anastasiu, neither for the Government, but he ended. This does not mean that we do not have to draw some conclusions after what happened and after the description of the facts and with all the understanding I have, because I also managed a company for many years, and I have been working in the 90th year.”
He said that the life of the entrepreneur can put you in the situation to make “very difficult choices”, but the practices that led to Anastasiu's resignation cannot be accepted.
Dragoș Anastasiu gave a “survival bribe” to ANAF for 8 years, then at the same time he denounced and moved the activity on another company, and the following year he sold the business of a large German group. “It was a business of 150 million euros”
“In general, giving bribes or offering some forms of taxes, if I could tell them for protection, we cannot encourage them in any form and we should not generally accept them. In no situation (…) we cannot support such practices,” the prime minister appreciated.
Bolojan said that he has data that the practice of setting up fiscal consulting companies by relatives of some ANAF employees is relatively widespread.
“I think we have cases today-and we have data related to these things-in which the decision-making people in the Romanian finance structures have affini, close, spouses, sisters who have accounting companies or companies that also offer consulting with companies that are controlled by the institution that the direction that these people can coordinate. Day on another.
The prime minister says he didn't know about Anastasiu's situation
He appealed to the Romanian entrepreneurs who are in situations similar to the one in which Dragoș Anastasiu found to stop the payments made abusively and to denounce the corrupt officials as they now no longer benefit from protection.
What are the arguments of the businessmen who support Dragoș Anastasiu and what do those who contest it
“It is obvious that years when these systems worked in a perverted form, for example how it worked in the years to enter the EU Border Police on the western border of Romania or the customs system in Romania or how the control systems worked. Think of the Financial Guard during the 90s and until 2000 when the system was changed.
Asked if he knew about the involvement of Deputy Prime Minister Anastasiu in the bribe file, Bolojan replied: “I did not know about this and I did not discuss this aspect (…) I collaborated well in all these years. Unfortunately, this is the situation. ”
Regarding the appointment of a new deputy prime minister to deal with the reform of state -owned companies, Bolojan said: “Strictly at the moment will not be a replacement proposal, such a person must be identified. But because the field he deals with was a very important one – the reform of the state companies and AMEPIP I will take these responsibilities, which I will directly take over, which I will take into account. worked, we can put them into practice. ”
Deputy Prime Minister Dragoş Anastasiu announced his resignation on Sunday, in a press conference over an hour, in which he talked about the context in which, for eight years, during 2009-2017, his company bribed an ANAF employee. He claimed that the context in which he agreed to give bribe was “one of major crisis” and it was about “survival bribe” in the face of state abuses.
In the press conference he held alone, in the Government, Anastasiu claimed that “there are two types of spikes”: “There are survival and enrichment and, from my point of view, the work was from the survival area.”
