Romania’s 2015 state budget

The Romanian President Klaus Iohannis on Monday signed the decree for the promulgation of Romanias state budget law and the social security budget for 2015.

Roxana Vasile, 30.12.2014, 13:46

“A piece of good news for all Romanians!” This has been the reaction of the Social Democrat Prime Minister Victor Ponta after President Iohannis promulgated the budget law, which shows that the head of the government is relieved apparently, following the controversy stirred around the next year’s budget. President Klaus Iohannis himself had previously voiced his dissatisfaction with the Ponta government’s unjustified delay in drawing up the budget bill. There were also many people who were curious to know how the Government would cover the cost of the populist measures taken during the presidential election campaign, such as increased state allowances for underprivileged people.

The 2015 budget bill was drawn up in mid-November and then passed by Parliament on December 21. On December 22, the opposition, made up of former party colleagues of President Iohannis, challenged the budget bill in Court. The Liberals, alongside the Liberal Democrats, both in opposition, argued that the budget bill did not have any fiscal-budgetary strategy and also signalled the delay in submitting it to Parliament for approval. However, the criticism around the budget bill cannot be interpreted as a violation of the Constitution, the Constitutional Court President, Augustin Zagrean, has explained.

On his Facebook page, PM Ponta wrote that he did not understand why the Liberal Party challenged the bill in the first place. Following the Constitutional Court’s ruling, President Klaus Iohannis signed the decree for the promulgation of Romania’s state budget law and the social security budget for 2015, so that they can be enforced as of January 1st. The Social Democratic Party, the main party of the ruling coalition, says that the next year’s budget focuses on economic growth, on creating jobs and maintaining a social balance. The Social Democrats also mention a decrease in taxes and an increase in salaries in the education and health systems.

The Liberals however, continue to say that many of the budget’s figures and estimations are unrealistic and that the current government does not have any vision for Romania’s lines of development. So they are waiting to see how the budget’s provisions will be observed, in keeping with a deficit of 1.8% of the GDP, an inflation rate of 2.2% and an economic increase of 2.5%, all of these stipulated in the 2015 budget bill.