Analysis of the Draft Law Amending and Supplementing the Law on Public Finance and Budgetary-Fiscal Responsibility No. 181/2014
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Automatically translated summary. The full text is available in Romanian.
The Ministry of Finance has published for consultation proposed amendments to the Law on Public Finance and Budgetary-Fiscal Responsibility No. 181/2014. The Independent Think Tank “Expert-Grup” analysed them against good governance principles and good public finance practices, concluding that the changes would weaken parliamentary oversight and multi-year budget planning.
Most proposals clarify legal provisions and remove inconsistencies and errors. However, two changes are crucial. The first repeals Article 49 on medium-term macro-budgetary limits, ending the obligation to prepare them and have Parliament approve them. The second narrows the mandatory content of the Medium-Term Budgetary Framework (MTBF) under Article 48(3), leaving items such as tax changes, debt, balances and expenditure limits to the Ministry of Finance’s discretion.
The analysis argues that budget planning would remain unstable and ineffective, and that the amendments are a step backwards from the course set in previous years. In other countries, less emphasis on approving macro-budgetary limits is offset by greater parliamentary involvement at the MTBF stage and by an independent fiscal institution. Moldova largely lacks both, so Parliament should at least approve the MTBF. An annex contains detailed analysis and new proposals.
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