THE DEBT CROSSES EUROPE

In August 2016, the Alicante file — the one of the four addresses, the one of the debt built on notifications that never reached their recipient — made the leap that changed its whole scale: the AEAT activated its enforcement in Romania (A.41), invoking the European mechanisms of mutual assistance for the recovery of claims.

The instrument chosen — Directive 2010/24/EU — exists to pursue the fraudster who hides assets in another Member State. Here it was applied to a man who lived in Spain, in Alicante, a short distance from the office enforcing against him; who had an open dispute with that same administration over the validity of the notifications; and whose Romanian assets were not hidden in any tax haven: they were the land of a declared, known and documented urban development project.

The practical effect was immediate and devastating: what in Spain was a disputed debt — disputed precisely for its defects of origin — arrived in Romania as a final and unquestionable title. The Romanian authorities do not examine the merits: they enforce what the issuing State certifies. If the certificate is born flawed, the flaw travels with it — and becomes irreversible along the way.

On that enforcement 21 properties would be seized. The debt figure, once on Romanian soil, would also begin to behave in a way that will deserve its own chapter: growing.