Former Romanian president’s party aims to block 2018 budget law in Parliament

The 2018 budget law has been blocked in the Parliament after the MPs of the opposition Popular Movement Party (PMP) filed 3,318 amendments to the law, which need to be discussed before the law is approved, Economica.net reported. PMP is former Romanian president Traian Basescu's party. If the 2018 budget is not approved by the end of this year, the budget execution will be done according to the 2017 budget law. This is the second filibuster-type move in the Romanian parliament, after the MPs of the Save Romania Union (USR), another opposition party, blocked the law on the split VAT payment system. “The amendments bring basic corrections to the budget set for adoption, although, fundamentally, the draft law no longer has anything in common with the famous governing program with which the Social Democrat Party (PSD) fooled Romanians in the elections, with the phony promises of the electoral campaign,” PMP representatives said. The PMP said it asked for the allocation of consistent resources for the work on the Bucharest side belt road, for consolidation work at buildings with high seismic risk, for the work at the Drumul Taberei metro line, for programs and activities for the diaspora, for the implementation of the “One ambulance in every town” program, and for building 1,400 kindergartens and childcare facilities in Romania's main cities. The National Liberal Party (PNL) and the Save Romania Union (USR) have also come up with several hundred amendments to the budget law, criticizing the Government's budget projections for next year. According to liberal MP Florin Citu, the revenues included in the 2018 budget are overestimated by some EUR 2 billion and the expense allocation undermines the country's economic growth. He also thinks that Romania risks an infringement procedure from the European Commission because its budget deficit will surpass the 3% of GDP limit imposed by EU treaties. The filibuster procedure, popular in the US, is aimed at the delaying the adoption of a law through very long debates, giving parliamentary minorities leverage in negotiating with the majority. Last month, the USR deputy Claudiu Năsui filed 5,000 amendments to the law changing the regime of the split VAT. If the split VAT law does not pass by the end of the year, the government ordinance making the split VAT compulsory for all companies in Romania will apply. If the law approving the government ordinance is rejected, the split VAT would be completely eliminated. In order for this to happen, it needs to be rejected by the end of the year, Economica.net reported. Last week, two MPs of the governing PSD and one MP of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) introduced a project changing the rules of the Chamber of Deputies. The project entails the group voting of admitted amendments to a law, if the time allotted to the debate expired, and the voting of the rejected ones only in several cases. The project would block the opposition’s filibuster procedure. One of the PSD MPs who proposed the project is Florin Iordache, the former justice minister whose initiative to change the criminal codes at the beginning of the year sparked the biggest street protests Romania has seen in the last two decades.