The Parliament started the debate of the 2010 state budget. Today (Tuesday, January 12) the Parliament is due o debate the articles of the documents after yesterday it debated the general issues. The document sent by the Government suffered a series of modifications in the specialized committees. The Social Democrats and the Liberals announced that they will not vote the budget.

Sebastian Vladescu declared during a break that a budgetary deficit increase is out of the question. The approved amendment for article 2 in the specialized committees foresees the increase of the budgetary deficit by 4.7 billion lei.

The budget draft can be consulted online. Hotnews.ro will update the information along the day today. Judicial Committee representative in the Parliament presented the Economic Council report for the debate of the state budget.

UPDATE 5 15:37 Article 4 of the draft 2010 budget was postponed and sent to the specialized committees to be discussed on Wednesday, January 13.

UPDATE 4 12:08 PM Parliamentarians approved article 3 of the draft budget law

Article 3 did not have any amendments

Article 2 was adopted without numbers together with the amendment approved by the Committees

UPDATE 3 Parliamentarians voted the amendment admitted in the Committees, which proposed the increase of the budgetary deficit, but without numbers. Any numbers will be approved after detailed talks with credit coordinators.

UPDATE 2 Finance minister Sebastian Vladescu declared during a break that a budgetary deficit increase is out of the question.

UPDATE 1 10:30 am The Parliament approved the first article of the draft budget

Article 2 - budgetary deficit

Social Democrats propose an increase of the budgetary deficit at 6.5%. Parliamentarians debate whether article 2 on revenues, spending and budgetary deficit needs to be voted with or without numbers.

Social Democrat Anghel Stanciu

  • we propose an increase of the deficit: there is a crisis deficit and a development deficit. The second one brings most investments and we will opt for a development deficit, so that the budgetary deficit to reach 6.5%
  • Euro zone countries have an average deficit of 6.5% and overall in the EU countries have a 7.3% deficit
  • Romania is on the last place regarding public debt