SocDem leader wants to know why the EC has a critical attitude towards Romania

Liviu Dragnea, the leader of Romania's Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the president of the Chamber of Deputies, believes that the recent warnings coming from the European Commission (EC) are not fair. He would also want to know why the Commission has such a critical attitude towards Romania. He said that, after a talk with Calin Popescu-Tariceanu, the president of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE), together they decided to send an official letter to EC President Jean-Claude Juncker to ask for explanations about the Commission's attitude towards Romania. ALDE is the junior coalition partner of PSD and Tariceanu is president of the Senate. Dragnea said at local TV station Romania TV that such attitudes “can only have one reason: to raise distrust in the governing program so that fewer foreign investments are made.” “There is currently no economic indicator that could raise any real concern from the European Commission or the IMF. And then you ask yourself: isn’t that what it is intended, for Romania to be stopped?,” he added. On Monday, May 22, the European Commission issued a warning on Romania’s significant deviation from the medium-term budgetary objective in 2016. Besides that, the EC issued several recommendations for Romania that need to be adopted by the European Council. Dragnea reacted after the warning, saying: “In Europe, there are two voices on fiscal discipline. When France and Spain exceed the 3% budget deficit threshold, nobody minds. When Romania has the highest economic growth in EU, we are again reminded about austerity.” On Thursday, the IMF also warned that Romania's budget deficit may spike to 3.7% of the GDP this year. Romania’s economy accelerated unexpectedly in the first quarter of the year, going up 5.7% compared to the same period the previous year, surpassing the analysts’ estimates. EC asks Romania to implement EUR 3.3 bln measures to adjust deficit Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com