Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis on March 11 promulgated the social security budget because, he said, retired people “must no more endure hardship caused by the incompetence and indifference demonstrated by the Social Democrats”.

Afterwards, he resumed the wave of criticism against the senior ruling party, blaming it for not having a budget planning for the year yet.

Last week, Iohannis returned the 2019 budget planning (the state budget and the indicators for the general government budget), after the Constitutional Court found inconsistency between some indicators. The weaknesses related to the Government’s budget planning, supposed to have been sent to Parliament by November 15, have been broadly discussed so far: it is based on overly optimistic assumptions (5.5% GDP growth, nearly twice as high as the consensus forecast) and it does not account for the negative impact of several measures with major impact on the budget revenues and GDP growth (such as the Development and Investment Sovereign Fund, or the “greed tax” on financial assets).

The head of the senior ruling Social Democrats, Liviu Dragnea, said that the Parliament would not change the budget for 2019, after being sent back by Klaus Iohannis, because “it was very good,” Jurnalul.antena3.ro reported.

“It was drafted very well, and we can not modify it because of the mockery of a man who happens to be the President of Romania,” the PSD leader said.

editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Presidency.ro)