The Government might fail to meet the deadline set by President Traian Basescu for state spending cuts for mid June, even though Premier Emil Boc will choose the fastest legislative procedure: undertaking of responsibility by the government for a law to include every arrangement made with the International Monetary Fund.
Yet the Government's attention seems to be focusing on something else: over the last three days the top members of the Cabinet have been providing explanations about the terms of the negotiations with the IMF, given that the Fund's Managing Director Dominique-Strauss Kahn told a French TV station that it was solely the Romanian Government's decision to cut budget paid employees' wages by 25% and pensions by 15% instead of hiking taxes as suggested by the IMF's mission.
The Romanian officials, among which Prime Minister Emil Boc, Finance Minister Sebastian Vladescu and presidential advisor Sebastian Lazarescu said the representatives of the Fund insisted on tax hikes and the IMF's managing director, a former socialist Economy Minister, made such statements before a French audience because he wanted to get into the presidential race of 2012 against Nicholas Sarkozy.
The Government might fail to meet the deadline set by President Traian Basescu for state spending cuts for mid June, even though Premier Emil Boc will choose the fastest legislative procedure: undertaking of responsibility by the government for a law to include every arrangement made with the International Monetary Fund.
Yet the Government's attention seems to be focusing on something else: over the last three days the top members of the Cabinet have been providing explanations about the terms of the negotiations with the IMF, given that the Fund's Managing Director Dominique-Strauss Kahn told a French TV station that it was solely the Romanian Government's dec