Prime Minister Chiril Gaburici in the April 9 sitting of Parliament presented the bills for which the Government assumed responsibility, namely the fiscal and customs policy, the state budget law, the social insurance budget law and the health insurance funds law for 2015, IPN reports.
Chiril Gaburici said the expectations and forecasts for this year are considerably less optimistic than it is desired. The Ministry of Economy’s forecasts, based on which this package of laws was drafted, show that the GDP will decrease by 1% on 2014 in comparable prices. The annual average rate of inflation will be 6.4%, while the annual average exchange rate of the leu against the U.S. dollar will be 19.3 lei. Exports are expected to decrease by 10%, while imports by 15%.
The Premier argued they resorted to such a move because the laws envision a series of investments that will stimulate the economic development and will improve the conditions for the subsequent sustainable development and creation of new workplaces. Also, the fiscal legislation affects directly the activity of economic entities and some aspects of the negotiations with the development partners depend on the approval of the state budget. The implementation of a series of reforms is delayed because there is no functional budget and the state institutions cannot initiate procurement procedures.
Chiril Gaburici said the 2015 state budget law provides for incomes of 30.3 billion lei, an increase of 9.5% on 2014, and for a total expenditure of 34.3 billion lei, up 16.9% on last year. The deficit will thus be 3.98 billion lei or 3.4% of the GDP. The financial support of the foreign development partners is expected to total 2.7 billion lei, 0.9 billion lei of which will be directed to support the budget, while 1.8 billion lei – to implement joint projects with the development partners.
The Socialists criticized the Government’s initiative, saying they signed a censure motion, but, given that at least 26 votes are needed and they are 25, they are inviting MPs from other factions to join them.
The Communists said they think the constitutional framework was violated by the Government’s assumption of responsibility for this package of laws and are considering the possibility of asking the Constitutional Court to pronounce on the procedure. They reminded the Socialists that the four censure motions the Communists submitted until now weren’t supported by these.
If no censure motion is filed during 72 hours, the laws for which the Government assumed responsibility will be signed by the Head of Parliament and will take effect without being passed by the MPs. If a censure motion is registered and supported, the Government will have to resign.
