Child allowances to be gradually doubled, says FinMin Citu

Child allowances will be doubled, but in stages, and the lawmakers who vote for populist laws should donate more revenue to the budget to have more money to double the allowances, Finance Minister Florin Citu told Digi 24 private broadcaster on Wednesday.

"The allowances will be doubled, that's the promise I make, but in stages. Many of these social expenditures are made in stages. At the same time, I tell the lawmakers who are still voting for such laws in Romania in 2020 amid a global economic crisis to find another country in the European Union or in the world that is making such efforts during this period, to increase allowances, to increase pensions, to allocate extra bonuses (...) Maybe more lawmakers should donate from their earnings so that we may be able to have more money in the budget to double the allowances. Perhaps those who have voted should make the effort. Then it would be a credible move, but to pass a law without giving a source of funding is populism. It shows what the Social Democratic Party (PSD) socialists have done from the beginning. From the first moment they joined the Opposition, they have only passed as on a conveyor belt laws that would have blown up Romania's budget in 2020 in a crisis situation. Let alone the fact that they wanted to vote against the prolongation of the state of emergency, led by their interim chairman, the eternally interim chairman, which was a criminal gesture on their part," said Citu.

On Wednesday, the Chamber of Deputies rejected, as a decision-making body, Ordinance 123/2020, amending and supplementing Article 3 in Law 61/1993, in order to gradually increase the amount of the child allowances.

As many as 166 MPs voted for rejecting the ordinance, 63 against and 29 abstained.