The Senate approved the Conservative Party’s proposal of reducing the VAT from 19 to 9 per cent for food products, as a result of votes from Democratic, Conservative, Social Democratic and Greater Romania MPs. However, the vote sparked criticism from the Liberals who accused the Democrats of betraying the coalition government.

The initiators of this measure were supported by the Democrats and the opposition parties PSD and Greater Romania, with 65 votes in favour, whereas the Liberals and the Hungarian Union mustered 34 votes against.

The proposal aims at modifying the Fiscal code by reducing the VAT for food products such as bread, eggs, milk, meat, oil, sugar and rice.

Niculae Done, a partner within the KPMG Romania consulting firm, told Hotnews.ro that the potential cut of VAT for food products would be hard to be accepted by the Finance Ministry. Cristian Badescu, editor-in-chief for the Piata (Market) magazine, agrees in that the measure may cut 1 billion Romanian lei from the state budget.

The leader of the DA Alliance group in the Senate accused his Democrats fellows of betraying the Government. A Democrat Senator justified the party’s vote as"the right thing to do" given the poor conditions for the population.