Legislative Circus Show: Three Budgets

First, Mircea Geoana had the intention that the "transparent majority" pass a law to enable the dismissed Government to present the Parliament with a draft Budget for 2010.

Had the IMF not asked for it (as a condition for disbursing the loan tranche scheduled for December), he wouldn"t have worried at all that the country was stepping into 2010 without a Budget.

His advisors probably cautioned him about the blunder in his statement (the Government has been dismissed and therefore has nothing to do with the Parliament anymore, so the Parliament can pass whatever laws they want, as Boc no longer has any obligation about the draft Budget; one needs to ask him politely and, if he accepts, it"s fine and if he doesn"t, he doesn"t).

And now he has come up with another idea: "I want to suggest to the parliamentary majority of 65 per cent to work together on the budget for 2010."

However, the selfish Liberals do not want to share their financial wisdom with the "transparent majority." They want to create their own draft Budget.

I will quote National Liberal Party (PNL) First Vice President Ludovic Orban, as his statements are simply delicious: "The PNL leadership on Monday decided to empower a commission of six Liberals to create, by next week, its own draft State Budget for 2010, based on the PNL Programme and with a distinct focus on stopping economic decline," PNL First Vice President Ludovic Orban said.

Orban further said that PNL"s draft budget would be created by a commission comprising Varujan Vosganian, Dan Radu Rusanu, Daniel Chitoiu, Eugen Nicolaescu, Mariana Campeanu and Ludovic Orban without any collaboration with the interim Government and without any consideration for the provisions of the agreement with the IMF, because such provisions "are not known."

Asked whether PNL was going to collaborate with PSD or UDMR in creating the draft budget, or whether they were planning to discuss it with the Government, Orban replied that the draft budget was going to be created by PNL specialists coordinated by the specially appointed commission and then it would be submitted to the Parliament for debate. "Which Government? The interim Government does not have the constitutional authority to create draft laws," the PNL leader commented.

The comment on these statements can be simply summarized as: ha-ha!

Ludovic Orban is correctly refuting the constitutional authority of the dismissed Government, but not for a single moment does he ask himself what legal authority the Liberal commission has to create the draft Budget.

How does that work?

The Parliament makes it, and the Parliament endorses it?

These people are making laws for us.

But they never read them.

If we read the Public Finance Law, Article 19, we realize that the only institution allowed to create the draft Budget is the Ministry of Finance.

Full stop.

No, Rompetrol is not allowed. Nor is Grivco. Nor RAFO. Nor Intervam. Nor Realitatea TV. Nor PRO TV.

No.

Only the Ministry of Finance.

Poor Boc (my God, now I feel sorry for him - I would never have believed that!) says he is going to have the Budget ready by 10 November, but no one asked him.

That"s true, he cannot submit it to the Parliament as a legal initiative of the Government, because the Government has been dismissed.

But at least the draft would be created by the Ministry of Finance, as required by law.

The manner in which the draft Budget is brought to the Parliament is another story.

Just like Boc has said and done about other laws since the Government was dismissed, the draft Budget for 2010 could be undersigned by a few members of Parliament as a legal initiative.

Thus, the law will have been observed. Of course, it will have been observed in a speculative, formal way, but that is still better than not being observed at all.

Yes, it"s still a circus show, but a State circus show...