...September 29, 2020 STOCKHOLM (S&P Global Ratings) Sept. 29, 2020--S&P Global Ratings today said that the Romanian parliament's vote to reinstate a pension hike could end up prompting a budgetary correction. On Sept. 22, the Romanian parliament voted to reinstate the 40% pension hike legislated in the summer of 2019 by the then PSD-led government; the incumbent Liberal-led minority government had since reduced it to 14%. The decision highlights the confrontational nature of Romanian politics and the ensuing lack of predictability in policymaking. The reinstatement of the 40% hike was championed by the opposition, led by the PSD party, which used its strong position in parliament to orchestrate it. We believe that if the pension hike will stand, Romania will have bitten off more than it can chew, fiscally speaking. Our next scheduled ratings publication for Romania (###-/Negative/A-3) is Dec. 4, 2020. Our baseline expectation remains that government, which strongly opposes the 40% hike, will...
