The governing coalition parties in Romania has recently signed a protocol to support accession to the EU Fiscal Governance Agreement. The protocol was signed by Emil Boc, the president of the Democrat Liberal Party (PDL) and Romania’s former Prime Minister, the president of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) - Kelemen Hunor, Varujan Pambuccian, the leader of the national minorities parliamentary group, and UNPR leader - Gabriel Oprea. The opposition parties did not sign the protocol.

The Romanian President Traian Basescu, a former PDL member himself, salutes the coalition parties’ decision to sign for the ratification of the agreement, according to Mediafax newswire.

European leaders met on January 30 in Brussels to agree on the terms of a permanent safeguard fund for the eurozone and on tighter fiscal discipline. The UK and the Czech Republic were the only countries out of the 27 that rejected the pact.

The budgetary discipline treaty will be signed from March onwards and enforced once 12 countries sign. The deficit of countries that join the treaty will have to stay below 0.5 percent of GDP and each country will have to create a correction mechanism that would start automatically in case the deficit exceeds the threshold. Countries will face automatic sanctions when exceeding a deficit of 3 percent of the GDP.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com