Prime Minister Pavel Filip considers the Party of Socialists’ initiative to initiate a referendum to repeal the law ‘that makes the people repay the stolen US$1 billion’ implies enormous costs that are to be covered with state budget funds. In a posting on Facebook, the Prime Minister says this initiative represents a mistake and its only effect is the possibility for the Socialists to find a pretext to campaign on public money, IPN reports.

According to the Premier, the Election Code provides that the problems related to taxes and budget cannot be put up for a referendum. Secondly, even if such a referendum was legal, it would be anyway useless as this law cannot be annulled as it already had its legal effect.

Pavel Filip said this law forms part of the package based on which the agreement with the IMF was signed. If this mechanism is reviewed, the continuation of this accord will be automatically in question. “The President knows very well that the sum classed as public debt was already partially recovered and will be fully recovered. So, the people will not have to repay this money,” concluded the Prime Minister.

The Party of Socialists announced that an initiative group will be soon set up to organize a national referendum on the annulment of the law ‘that makes the people repay the stolen US$1 billion’. According to the Socialists, the stolen money should be returned by all those who were involved in the theft by confiscating their property, not by pensioners, large families, doctors and teachers.