Orban: We'll postpone entry into force of Law on child allowance until budget revision

The government will postpone the term to apply the law that provides for the doubling of children's allowances, said Prime Minister Ludovic Orban on Wednesday upon leaving the event dedicated to the Day of Culture organized at the Romanian Athenaeum. 

"I am sure you know very well that last week, after the analysis that we've made together with the President of Romania on this subject, we announced this, that the President will promulgate (the law) and that we, although we desire the increasing of the allowance - the allowance already grew this year following the law initiated by our colleague Sighiartau, indexed by the rate of inflation - so we desire the increasing of the child benefit, only that the entry into force of this law came later than the (adoption of) the Law of the state budget. In the state budget law we did not include the sums necessary, which are pretty high - they're over six billion lei - in order to support this measure and, more so, we are not even allowed, constitutionally and legally, to generate costs without there being a source in the Law of the state budget. As such, we will postpone the entry into force until the first moment we will be able to make a budget revision, namely after the date of July 1," said Ludovic Orban. 

"The budget revisions are made in a certain constitutional, legal framework which is tied also to our accession to the Pact on stability and growth. As such, we must respect some rules in what regards the budget revision and I tell you clearly that we will be extremely prudent and responsible in what regards engaging any cost, because our fundamental objective is to redo all the economic balances, to ensure an economic development not by increasing wages on paper, but by increasing incomes that would lead to the increasing of the purchasing power and which would be truly based on what every civilized country bases its economic growth - investments, competitiveness, increasing productivity, research, applying the results of innovation and research, meaning on the basis of any favorable economic dynamic. The rest is a lot of demagoguery in Romania. Everyone gives, but nobody understands that in order to give one must have somewhere to give from and increasing budget resources can be done only on the basis of solid economic growth," said Orban. 

President Klaus Iohannis promulgated on Wednesday the Law on the doubling of the child benefits.