Vosganian: "The government will find it very difficult to get the lump sum tax past the Parliament"

C.D.

Vice-president of the National Liberal Party (PNL), Varujan Vosganian, yesterday said in a press conference, that the budget revision made by the Government is so different from the initial version of the Budget Law that it could very well be considered a new budgetary policy, which has not been approved by the Parliament.

The former Economy and Finance Minister said: "This amendment relies on some tax policies that were not explicitly approved by the various political faction in the Parliament.

So far no political group in the Parliament came forward in support of the lump sum tax or of the separation of pensions and salaries. On the contrary, we have warring statements from top politicians in the Parliament of the political groups that are part of the government coalition, saying that these steps are either bad, or coming at a bad time."

Vosganian said that the Executive will have a lot of trouble in getting the lump sum tax past the Parliament.

"I"m warning the Government ahead of time that it will have a lot of trouble in the Parliament with the vote on the legislation concerning the lump sum tax", the vice-president of the NLP said, as quoted by Agerpres.

According to him, the budget revision will not improve anything, instead it will make everything worse.

Varujan Vosganian said: "If it was clear to us when the budget law was adopted that the 2% budget deficit could not be reached, right now after the first three months, it becomes obvious that even the 4.6% is a target that is beyond reach. The deficit for the first three months is almost 40% of the deficit forecasted for the entire year".

On the other hand, the vice-president of the National Liberal Party, Mariana Câmpeanu, accused the Government of cowardice, by hiding behind the agreement with the IMF in order to justify the steps that it is not capable of passing ,referring to the steps for reducing the imbalance between pensions and salaries, and the issue of wages in the public sector.

Câmpeanu also criticized the way the Government handled the wage policy, saying that increasing teacher"s salaries by 50% and pushing other social categories to ask for wage increases, has actually led to an increase in wages.