Hungarian Minority Party Leader: 2019 Budget Share Is Neither Fair Nor Acceptable

Hunor told MEDIAFAX that the budget project came as a “big surprise” for UDMR, adding that he did not understand why the Government did not announce or discuss the subject in advance.

“All spending for child protection and disabled persons is transferred towards local authorities, municipalities and counties. In the counties on which we ran simulations, they will have, on this budget, a loss starting with RON17 million and up to RON70 million. Until now, local authorities paid 20-30-40%, while the rest of the spending was covered by the Labor Ministry, which must be kept as it is,” Hunor told MEDIAFAX.

He added that it is “unlikely” for UDMR to support the project in its current form in a parliamentary vote, and that the group will file a series of amendments requesting the recalculation of social spending.

“The income share, the vision, the philosophy of this budget regarding local authorities is neither correct nor acceptable. At this moment, it is unlikely to say that we will support the budget in this form, because you cannot start in February with knowing that you have deficit of a couple of tens and hundreds of millions of lei at local councils,” the UDMR leader said.

Romania’s government targets a deficit of 2.55% of gross domestic product and expects economic growth of 5.5%, according to the 2019 state budget plan published late on Thursday.

It sees inflation at 2.8% this year, close to the central bank’s projection of 2.9%.

Consolidated budget revenues are projected at RON341.4 billion, or 33.4% of GDP, and expenses are seen at RON367.5 billion, or 35.9% of GDP.