Senate Committee Passes Budget Rectification Without Amendments

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The Public Administration Committee of the Senate yesterday passed the Government ordinance on the rectification of the State Budget. Five senators representing PSD and PD-L voted in favour, while UDMR"s Senator Tiberiu Gunther voted against, arguing that he would have expected to see some of the IMF loan go to the State Budget in order to revive the economy, Agerpres announced.

Senator Gunther explained: "We are borrowing 20 billion, but none of it is going to the State Budget. We are taking a huge loan, next to which our budget is fading. Actually, the budget has decreased by 10 percent compared to the estimate made one month ago. Our economy is fading. Are we taking a loan to bury the Romanian economy?"

Senator Petru Filip (PD-L), Chairman of the Public Administration Committee, announced that the senators had not many any amendment to the rectification bill. In his opinion, amendments would be insignificant. "I voted in favour of the bill because, at this point, I do not think that there are too many things that can still be changed. Possible amendments would be insignificant. One needs to look at the budget in its entirety in order to make meaningful amendments. Otherwise, to move one million from here to there does not mean much," Senator Filip said.

He expressed his hope that, at the end of the next semester, the budget would be rectified positively, following a decrease in the deficit. "The deficit for the first three months is somewhere around 10-12 million, so the rectification is only 2.5 million. The balance is quite good. The money that is saved from investments, material expenses and public salaries is used especially for social security. I do not think there is too much more that can be done, provided that the deficit is indeed used for investments, so that the deficit may decrease by the end of the next semester," Senator Filip said.

He also presented the matters that had drawn most of the attention during the debates of the Public Administration Committee. "We were particularly interested in the spending cuts of the Regional Development Ministry, which is the only ministry scarcely affected by the rectification, as well as of the Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry of Administration and Interior," Senator Filip said. "As far as the Ministry of Administration and Interior, we would like to make sure that the programmes impacting the local communities - such as the subsidies for heating, the upgrades to the heating plants and the expansion of the electricity grid - are not affected by spending cutes above what has already been stipulated in the already approved budget," he said.

Senator Filip is of the opinion that the Ministry for the Environment should further pursue the programmes based on European funding, otherwise "we are headed for a huge impasse this year."