How Boc's government ended up cutting 15% off pensions and 25% off public sector salaries

After four years during which the Romanian government had been teaching Europe a lesson in economic growth, Bucharest MPs are now in the shameful position of deciding salary cuts for public sector employees and pensioners in order to curb the debt spiral.
The two chambers of Parliament will decide today in a plenary session the outcome of the motion of censure introduced by PSD (Social Democratic Party) against the Government, after Prime Minister Emil Boc’s team assumed responsibility for a unprecedented package of austerity measures, which includes cutting pensions by 15% and salaries by 25% in order to achieve 10 billion RON in savings until the end of the year.
Rejecting the motion means the set of measures will be considered as adopted by Parliament, and, unless challenged in the Constitutional Court, it will go to President Traian Basescu for promulgation.
The tough measures meant to cut public spending come after a year and a half of procrastination, during which time no minister was able to talk honestly about the web of agencies and public institutions, say clearly what the total number of the public sector employees was, or curb the uncontrolled wage spending by cutting “outrageous” perks.
None of those in power since 2004 have given coherent explanations for the state’s increased spending, or for their failure to notice that Romania was one step away from defaulting.