Romania’s coalition government has survived four no-confidence votes on Sunday as it seeks to fast-track parliamentary approval for a raft of public sector spending reforms and tax hikes, to rein in bloated public spending.
Public sector works have threatened strikes amid strong public push-back to spending cuts as it moves to lower its 9.3% budget deficit, the highest in the European Union, to keep Romania on the bottom ranking of investment grading.
Fast-tracking the measures through parliament means they are spared a parliamentary debate, but have generated the four no-confidence votes from the far-right AUR opposition. which the government easily survived.
„It’s not clear what the opposition’s goal is. Is it because we are doing too much reform, or too little?” Prime Minister Ilie bolojan said after the votes flopped.
The cabinet approved a first package of measures, of mainly of tax hikes, after it came to power in late June, but the four coalition parties have been in deadlock on the widespread cuts to state spending.
The government has agreed five legislative packages which would save the budget some 10.6 billion lei, raise the retirement age for judges and prosecutors, cut state sector jobs, and introduce some tax hikes from 2026.
The government which has a comfortable majority in the legislature has chosen to split the measures into five packages to avoid having all of them struck down by the Constitutional Court simultaneously.
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