Parliament rejects no-confidence motion

Romanian lawmakers on Thursday rejected a no-confidence motion initiated by opposition liberals (PNL) and the Hungarian minority party (UDMR), as only 112 votes backed the motion, which needed 236 votes to pass.

Here are some politician reactions, following the debate of the motion:

Emil Boc, Prime-Minister: "This motion should have been directed towards its proponents"

Prime Minister Emil Boc, the proponent of the unified wage law, who took responsibility for it before the Parliament one week ago, vehemently attacked the proponents of the motion.

The PM said the current motion should have actually been targeted at its proponents instead.

"The motion is actually criticizing the former government, which was incapable of implementing this law that we drafted", Boc said.

The Prime Minister assured opposition members that the law of unified wages will eliminate the privileges brought about by the former PNL government, which created public sector jobs "for political reasons" whose holders were paid "humongous" salaries as big EUR 40.000 a month.

"You paid wages of 30,000 to 40,000 Euros to your political cronies, such as former agency heads, and what"s more, you hired 180,000 people in the public sector, which now employs 30% of the total number of employees in the economy", Emil Boc said.

Referring to the decrease of salaries during the implementation of the new law, the prime minister said that "no one will feel the pain on payday".

The Prime-Minister explained: "The switch to the new compensation system will happen gradually, and no one will be hurt by the decrease in salaries. Not all wages will increase at the same rate over the course of the 2010-2015 period, meaning that those with big wages will see them increase at a slower rate, whereas employees with low wages will see a greater increase. The average increase of public sector wages will amount to 56%".

The prime-minister said that, under the new law, newly-hired employees will receive a larger wage than those specializing in a certain field. Wages in the education sector for instance will increase by 128% for beginning teachers, and 39% for an established professor, and in the medical sector wages for doctors in training will increase 139%, as opposed to 72% for specialists.

Crin Antonescu: "You and the Government are like a drunken locomotive driver, high on the reforms you are proposing"

The President of the National Liberal Party, senator Crin Antonescu in turn criticized the current government, by metaphorically comparing it to a "drunken locomotive mechanic".

Crin Antonescu said: "In Romania, people go on strike, go out on the street to protest, while some people sit around in an office discussing who stays and who goes, and voices of shady businessmen ring louder than the weapons of policemen. You and the Government are like a drunken locomotive driver, high on the reforms you are proposing, and you think that after 20 years Romania is actually seeing any real reforms. You and your minister just party in the cab. Unfortunately, prime-minister, the cars have detached, and in the end it"s every man for himself".

In reply, Prime-Minister Emil Boc said that Crin Antonescu"s speech can be easily summed in one phrase: "It"s easy to write lyrics, but harder to give them meaning", and concluded that politics requires action, not words.

President of the National Liberal Party (PNL), Crin Antonescu, added that this "incoherent and unconstitutional law" is part of a governing program that was not clearly explained from the beginning, according to the principle "you can"t pay all we can borrow".

Crin Antonescu argued in favor of the motion to make sure members of the current government could "look each other in the eye come winter".