The congress of the romanian social democrats
Solutions to overcome the economic crisis and a concerted attack on the presidency and the government were some of the highlights of the extraordinary congress of the biggest opposition party in Romania, PSD.
18 Octombrie 2010, 17:50
Over the weekend, the Social Democratic leader, Victor Ponta, has launched an appeal to unity, reminding his party colleagues that their adversaries are the president Traian Basescu and the main party of the governing coalition, the Liberal Democratic Party.
He hopes the Social Democrats’ no-confidence motion will be a success.
The Social Democrats, supported by the Liberals and the Conservatives, want the collapse of the government, which they consider toxic, due to its incompetence, irresponsibility and its tendency to favor its political clientele.
The Social Democrats blame the government for the institutional crisis and the dissolution of the state.
If they manage to remove the Boc government, the Social Democratic Party is ready to govern.
They have already worked out a program including 100 solutions to overcome the crisis.
One of the measures that separate the Social Democrats’ vision on fiscal policies from that of the current government is differentiated taxation, which is to replace the current flat tax of 16%, in place since 2005.
The Social Democrats are determined to bring the state employees’ salaries back to the level they had before the 25% cut operated by the current government, to increase the minimum wage to more than 190 euros and to increase the VAT for luxury products and to decrease it for basic foodstuffs.
At an administrative and institutional level, the Social Democrats claim they want to de-politicize the administration and reform the state, something no party that has been in power in Romania in the last 20 years has ever achieved.
The Liberal Democratic Party has responded to the Social Democrats’ attack by trying to dismantle, with the help of figures, their governing project and to appease its offensive appetite.
The Liberal Democratic first vice-president, Adriean Videanu, said that the whole set of measures proposed by the Social Democrats would throw Romania into chaos because it would destroy the current fiscal stability.
Gradual taxation would increase the country’s budget deficit to more than 10%, Videanu warned, which would undermine Romania’s agreement with the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the World Bank and would prevent Romania from getting a loan from the capital market.
