DEFYING BĂSESCU Ponta and the clueless Harvard graduate

I don't think that the Government did not draw up the impact assessment of the cut of the Social Security Contributions (CAS), like the movie of high-level meeting held in Cotroceni between president Traian Băsescu and prime-minister Victor Ponta, accompanied by the Minister of Finance Ioana Petrescu, a movie which the Presidential Administration made public to deny the allegation of the prime-minister that Băsescu was a boor to the minister of Finance.

After viewing the movie, it becomes clear that, on one hand, Băsescu acts according to protocol (to the extent that he is capable of doing such a thing), refraining from insulting his guests who, on the other hand, defy him, asking him to promote the law for implementing the reduction of the Social Security Contributions, without describing its mechanism and the financial resources to recoup the five billion, which the social security budget is expected to lose through the implementation of that measure.

Băsescu criticizes the two for not presenting the way the solution for compensating the cut of the social security contributions if the law were passed, and he says that the total deficit would increase by approximately 1.7% if the law were passed.

Ioana Petrescu says that a study on the issue has been drawn up.

Băsescu asks to see it.

Petrescu says that the she will have it made study, after she just said it had already been done.

Had I been in Băsescu's shoes, I would have lost my temper and thrown an ashtray at her head, like Naomi Campbell did with her secretary.

It's a good thing there is no smoking in Cotroceni and that I am smart enough not to be a politician.

It's horrible to decide on the fate of the country, when dealing with high ranking curs.

But, from that incident, I think we can all draw the conclusion that we have a government that is made up of people who are clueless.

I don't rule out this possibility (especially when I look at minister Petrescu), but I don't believe in what the movie seems to reveal.

What makes it hard for me to believe something like that would be possible is the fact that it is impossible for such a law, which was announced such a long time ago, which was the subject of a long and detailed controversy (including with the IMF), not to have an impact assessment study, as well as a study on how to rebalance the budget earnings after its implementation, beyond the amateurishness of the pseudo-theoretical slogans of the graduate from Harvard, the 34 year woman who became a minister.

What I believe instead is the fact that in reality, Ponta did not want to give the material containing the impact assessment to the president.

I think that the flaws of the study are rather easy to find, and handing it to the president would provide rebuttals to the study, poking holes in the initiative of the Ponta Government itself.

I think that Ponta simply wanted to defy Băsescu, by having him face a dilemma: should the president humiliate himself, by passing a law whose risks are known to him, but not the solutions to those risks, or make an enemy of the business sector (who would stand to gain from the cut of the Social Security Contributions), by rejecting the law?

Ponta nonchalantly told Băsescu to reject the law, at least twice.

The fact that the two ministers had planned from the get go to defy the president like this was clearly visible on the face of Ioana Petrescu - a clearly infantile physiognomy, of a well domesticated nerd, whose only expression of rebellion comes in grimaces.

That's what she did when looking at the president as the issue of the meeting is discussed: she had drawn back her cheeks towards her ears, her mouth was stretched, and she had pouted her lower lip, just like preschoolers do when they get scolded, like they aren't listening to what they're being told and they want to express their indifference to the criticism they are being subjected to.

And while grimacing, Ioana Petrescu serves Ponta's political moves.

There really is no need for her to do so.

There was indeed some boorishness involved, but not on Băsescu's side.