Sweden Embassy, ruling PSD embark on cross talk on Facebook over budget draft, Nobel prize

The Swedish Embassy in Bucharest has embarked on a subtle cross talk on Facebook with the ruling Social Democrat Party. It all started with an embassy’s post on Friday, February 8, hinting to the delay of the Government to submit the 2109 budget draft to the Parliament.

„In Sweden, a Budget Bill must always be submitted no later than 15 November. The purpose of the time limit is to ensure that there is time before the start of the new fiscal year to take the formal decisions needed for central government activities to continue.

After the government submits its budget proposal to the Riskdag (Parliament), this body begins processing the draft budget. This is divided into two stages:

Stage 1: First, the Riksdag adopts the guidelines for economic policy and the economic framework of the central government budget. The framework decision, i.e. the decision on the limits for how large expenditure can be per expenditure area, guides the continued processing in the Riksdag, as the expenditure frameworks cannot be exceeded.

Stage 2: In the second stage, the Riksdag takes a position on allocating expenditure in each individual expenditure area; in other words how much money (appropriation) different activities will receive. Processing of the Budget Bill is complete when the Riksdag has taken a position on the proposals for all 27 expenditure areas. The Riksdag then finalises the central government budget.

The government then decides on appropriation directions for all government agencies and appropriations based on the Riksdag’s processing,” says the Swedish embassy’s post.

In retort, the Romanian Communications minister, Alexandru Petrescu, has also reacted on Facebook, on the budget delay topic, ironically reminding the embassy that the Nobel for literature was delayed last year because of a high-sounding sexual scandal.

„One of the diplomatic representations of a EU country in Bucharest, known for its posts on social media, sees fit to methodically explain us how the budget is adopted in its country. Thanking them for the unsolicited piece of advice, maybe they will manage to tell us, with the same promptitude and humour that are usually accompanying their online posts, if the Swedish Academy, the cultural institution responsible for awarding the prestigious Nobel prizes, will award the prize for literature this year….for, last year, the academy missed it, after 70 years of granting it, because of the sexual and financial scandal inside the Swedish Academy,” minister Petrescu said, adding that Romania will definitely have a budget in 2019.

„What can we find out about awarding the Nobel prize for literature in 2019? Do we gave the same certitude or it will be the same failure like in 2018 when literature lovers around the world have been deprived of this benchmark event worldwide?” Petrescu added.

Sweden Embassy has promptly retorted, reminding that ten years ago, the Nobel prize for literature went to the Romanian-born Herta Müller.

„Ten years ago, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Herta Müller, Romanian-born German novelist, poet and essayist.

Born in Nițchidorf (Timiș), her native language is German. Since the early 1990s she has been internationally established, and her works have been translated into more than twenty languages.

Müller is noted for her works depicting the effects of violence, cruelty and terror, usually in the setting of the Socialist Republic of Romania under the repressive Nicolae Ceaușescu regime which she has experienced herself.

In 2009, the Swedish Academy announced that she had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, describing her as a woman “who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed”.

In December 2009, Herta Müller received her Nobel Prize from His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden at the Stockholm Concert Hall.”