Romanian Parliament approves state and social insurance budgets

Newsroom 22/12/2014 | 12:38

The draft for Romania’s state budget for the next year passed through the Parliament on Sunday, receiving the go-ahead in the joint meeting of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.

The MPs cast on the state budget 339 positive votes and 141 negative ones. The state social insurance budget was also adopted on Sunday, receiving 329 positive votes and 148 negative ones. Prime-minister Victor Ponta was present for the vote.

The negotiations on the two draft laws started on Friday at 10:00 a.m., and ended on Saturday, at around 12:30, with the plenum having accepted only the amendments adopted by the Budget-Finance Committees.

The 2015 budget is based on a 2.5 percent economic growth, an average inflation rate of 2.2 percent and an unemployment rate of 5.1 percent, as per the negotiations between the state authorities and their international financial backers, the IMF and the European Commissions. GDP is estimated at RON 709.681 million.

The revenues of the 2015 consolidated general budget total 31.9 percent of GDP, expenditures — 33.7 percent of GDP and the cash budget deficit is 1.83 percent of GDP. The expenditures in 2015 for investments amount to RON 44.76 billion, RON 8.7 billion more than in 2014, representing some 6.3 percent of GDP.