PNL's Turcan say party no to vote on budget; calls it constitutionally questionable

National Liberal Party (PNL) floor leader in the Chamber of Deputies Raluca Turcan announced in the general debates on Wednesday on the draft 2019 national budget bill that her party would vote against the bill, calling the budget questionable from a constitutional point of view.

"This budget is signed by a prime minister who has failed all the important exams of education - early and late admission to high school exams and admission to college. The great regress of the Romanian society is that such a person subsequently became MEP and prime minister of Romania (...) The Social Democratic Party (PSD) is at rule, holds the speakership of the chamber and the chairmanships of the important parliamentary committees, and it also has Mr Valcov, the great guru of budgets, finance and cemeteries, and with all these advantages, it has failed to make up a budget that is coherent and debated under the best legal circumstances. Three months overdue, we have obtained an improvised, lying budget that is disconnected from all the big interests of Romania. It is questionable from a constitutional point of view. It mirrors perfectly [PM] Viorica Vasilica Dancila - as it is failing all the tests that have anything to do with the real priorities of the Romanian society (...) It is a budget of those who are at fault with the Criminal Code and more benevolent to criminal offenders than to honest Romanians. This Dragnea&Valcov budget is patched, praised, contradicted, and amended in the pure style of political mobsters. It is the vitamin D budget, instead of a budget to treat all the chronic illnesses triggered by the PSD governance. It is a budget promoted through rough and painful machinations. You are cynically placing in the balance the four million children of Romania against the bodies that are essential to our safety. (...) There are many reasons why PNL will not vote for this budget," Turcan said.

She also argued that the budget contained falsehoods such as "PSD is good and gives children food from AEP [Standing Electoral Authority] money, that is from political parties, when in fact the same PSD government has increased the appropriations for political parties, authored by imposter Liviu Dragnea."

"The construction, promotion and support of a draft budget have never been so low ... (...) It is a budget based on robbery, at the price of destroying the sectors that are heavy supporters of the budget," Turcan said.

He also criticised Government Emergency Ordinance 114/2018.

"The ordinance of Dragnea's and Valcov's meanness is robbing and demonising Romanian and foreign companies, state-run companies, the entire local administration and banks while depriving the younger generation of their pensions. That is what you have built your budget on. You are proceeding like Chavez-Maduro, who have led a country with vast riches, Venezuela, to despondency and bankruptcy. Let's hope Romania will not go bankrupt under your rule," Turcan said.

The PNL MP also argued that the budget contains genuine threats to national security.

"Do you know what the real threats are? The fact that you are mishandling the Romanian healthcare system, the fact that you have brutally rejected the PNL proposals to improve the healthcare infrastructure (...) Of eight regional hospitals, you have reached three, which will not be built in the end; your raising the doctors' pay is in vain because infrastructure is still in collapse. Education is an open wound and unfortunately is the PSD's specialty since you have placed Mrs Ecaterina Andronescu again at the helm of the education ministry, and we know very well how she managed to mess up generations of children and young people," said Turcan.

She also said that under the 2019 draft budget investments are "mortgaged." AGERPRES (RO - author: Florentina Peia, editor: Florin Marin; EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Adina Panaitescu)