Reforming public expenditures policy in Romania - challenges and opportunities

The analysis of the structure and dynamic of the budgetary expenditures highlights both the directions and the objectives for the public policy, assumed by the government, as well as its capability to transpose in effective results the governmental programme adopted. Even if programming the public expenditures is a “sovereign” attribute of the government, reflecting (apparently) a complete decisional independence, the economic, social, and political context, as well as the accepted institutional arrangements concretizes in a certain measure the quasi-objective limits, “reference points” that frame the governments’ policy for public expenditures, restraining thus the discretional liberty of the public policy makers. On such a conceptual background, our paper proposes an analysis of the Romania’s budgetary expenditures policy, oriented toward the following main aspects:

- how relevant were the objectives of the public expenditures policy in Romania for its needs of development and what was its quality?

- the measures for achieving those objectives were adequate?

- the reforms promoted in the field of budgetary expenditures were opportune?

- what were the inconsequence of the Romania’s budgetary expenditures policy and how these could be avoided?

- was it insured the “3E” criteria in budgetary expenditures?

- what implications had the financial crisis from the point of view of the reform of public expenditures in Romania?

In order to answer to these questions, we analyze the legal framework used by the budgetary expenditures policy and its transformations, the programs adopted and what was effectively realized (annual budgetary execution), using data available from national and international institutions. Based on these results, we formulate some recommendations of public policy that might be useful for public policy makers in the current context.