Romanian President returns 2019 budget bill to lawmakers, wants “better one”

Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis returned the 2019 budget bill to the parliament arguing that “it is not good enough” after the Constitutional Court found no problem with the state budget law.

"The message is simple: make a healthy budget for Romania! The Parliament has the opportunity, but first of all, the responsibility to quickly make the necessary corrections, so that the budget is one for the development of Romania," said Iohannis after the Constitutional Court’s decision.

"Beyond the constitutional aspects [which Iohannis did not want to comment on], the budget remains based on false figures, on money that the Government does not really have, it is wrongly designed against all the major objectives of the Romanians, and in short, the budget is a national shame," he stated bluntly.

Romania’s Constitutional Court on March 6 rejected the objections raised by president Klaus Iohannis to the 2019 state budget law but admitted the president's notification on the bill that increases the general government budget deficit cap (at 2.76% of GDP), Economica.net informed. Consequently, the bill that sets the general deficit cap was returned to Parliament.

The Court found that the lawmakers have not followed the procedures when amending this later law. Specifically, ruling coalition leader Liviu Dragnea filed an amendment for raising the deficit cap from 2.55% of GDP, the level initially proposed by the Government, to 2.76% of GDP, to address the extra expenditures incurred following the 80% increase in the children allowances (an amendment proposed by the opposition MPs).

This is, however, the least important of the objections raised by president Iohannis, who claimed that the 2019 state budget law and the procedure followed before its endorsement by the lawmakers breached the fiscal and budgetary responsibility law since the Fiscal Council was not consulted. Furthermore, Iohannis criticized the budget planning for being grounded on an overly optimistic scenario, for not observing the medium-term objective adhered to by Romania under the Fiscal Compact and for overstating the revenues while earmarking insufficient funds for investments.

The Constitutional Court turned down all these objections under a constitutional approach alone since the Court is not supposed to test them under an economic perspective.

(Photo source: Presidency.ro)