The Social Democrats plan to block the promulgation of the law on salaries by postponing debates on the motions of censure that were submitted by the Opposition. According to Parliamentary sources, the opposition intentionally missed Friday the meeting in the Parliament when the second motion of censure was supposed to be read. The aim of the Opposition is to block the promulgation of the law on salaries by December 31st. If the two motion of censures are not debated next week, the legislative acts cannot enter into force on January 1st 2010 and Romania risks to lose the next IMF instalment.

According to the constitution, after the government takes responsibility on the law, the Opposition has three days to submit a motion of censure. The law cannot be promulgated in the Official Journal unless all endeavours of the opposition are undertaken.

The plan of the Opposition is to postpone as much as possible the debate of the motions of censure so that the law on salaries cannot be promulgated and published in the Official Journal and to keep the law from being implemented as of January 1st 2011.

Moreover, if all laws on salaries are blocked, the promulgation of the law on the 2011 budget will also be postponed. In the law on 2011 budget, the sum allocated for the payment of salaries is calculated based on the 25% cut. Thus, by blocking all laws on salaries and postponing the promulgation of the law on 2011 budget, the agreement with the IMF is at stake since it conditioned the payment of the next instalments with the promulgation of these laws by January 7th.