The Parliament convenes today in three successive plenary sessions so that the Government should take responsibility on three topics, to amend the justice laws, to repeal GEO and on the budget ceiling law.
The Orban Cabinet will though give up taking responsibility on the law regarding the magistrates’ early retirement, after the Senate had passed this law on Wednesday.
At the same time, the Executive will drop the provision on the seniority required to join magistracy.
The Senate had passed another bill a day ago stipulating the early retirement of magistrates to be postponed by January 1, 2022 and to maintain a minimum seniority of 25 years.
PM’s call
PM Ludovic Orban has called on MPs to stop adopting other laws involving additional financial results, warning that ‘we are in an extremely difficult situation’ and that Romania’s budget for 2020 doesn’t stand any other expense.
“Any additional expense can lead to the impossibility of making vital payments. Please, think twice, when other draft laws are coming, regardless of the initiators, that it’s practically impossible to come up with bills that have no source of financing. We propose a budget deficit of 3.6% for 2020 and 3.34% for 2021.
It’s not possible to curb the deficit all of a sudden without also enforcing austerity measures. The reduction of the deficit must be gradual,” Orban argued.
In retort, PSD had defied the premier’s call, with interim leader Marcel Ciolacu announcing they will submit an amendment to the 2020 state draft budget to allow child allowances double. Ciolacu added that if the state budget bill doesn’t get the Parliament’s go-ahead, PSD will file a draft law on the child allowances. The current value of the allowance for children aged from 2 to 18 mounts to RON 150/month. If they double the value will reach RON 300/month for a child.
PSD’s move comes as a payback against PNL, which initiated a draft law in February this year to double child allowances from RON 84 to RON 150, a law eventually voted and adopted by the Parliament when PSD was in power and the Government was led by Viorica Dancila.
The child allowance increase was done through an amendment to the 2019 state budget law, with PSD being forced to amend the ceiling law and to increase the budget deficit from 2.55% to 2.76%.
Now, PSD wants to do the same thing to the Liberals.
On the other hand, Marcel Ciolacu announced that PSD will refer to the Constitutional Court two of the laws for which Orban Cabinet has taken responsibility in Parliament.