Parliament sure to pass budget draft

The Romanian Government is not worried about Parliament’s verdict on the 2004 budget draft, although the Opposition has already said it will vote against it.

“The Opposition also voted against the 2003 budget amendment, but the draft was eventually endorsed. At any rate, we have accepted many amendments originated by the Opposition,” Finance minister Mihai Tanasescu said.

He claims the 2004 budget “was not drafted with the upcoming electoral year in mind.” Nevertheless, he admits that supplementary resources are allotted for a generous social policy.

The social protection funds account for 10.8% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the largest share of the expenses included in the budget draft. On the other hand, the Government plans to use budgetary policy to push individual consumption down from 3.7% of GDP this year to 3.5% for 2004.

The budget-finance commissions accepted 69 amendments out of the 470 that the MPs or the members of specialty commissions proposed for the 2004 State Budget draft, Stefan Viorel, chairman of the Budget-Finance Commission, said.

According to Viorel, the amendments did not impact upon the budget deficit, which stayed the same, but said that several investment plans required additional expenses: the Ministry of Transports (another 20 billion ROL and, afterwards, 200 billion ROL to grant discounts for students), Ministry of Defence ((30 billion ROL), Ministry of Education ((13 billion ROL). According to Stefan Viorel, the budget-finance commissions rejected most amendments as they failed to specify the financing source or pointed to the State reserves as a source. He also said that, had the quoted amendments been passed, the budget deficit would have at least tripled.

Prime Minister Adrian Nastase told Parliament that the Government assumed the political responsibility for the budget drafts. He also voiced hope that parliamentary debates would emerge as a “professional confrontation of ideas and solutions” and asked the members of Parliament to vote for the budget.

razvan.voican@zf.ro