Romania Doubles Child Benefit to Boost Population

The lower chamber of the Romanian parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, on Wednesday agreed to double child benefit from 42 lei (some 9.3 euro) to 84 lei per month, in a bid to stimulate population growth. All 322 MPs voted in favour of the law.

"This is excellent news for some 3.5 million children and their families. We hope to further rise the monthly allowance in coming years and so encourage people to have more children," Alina Gorghiu, an MP from the opposition National Liberal Party, PNL, said.

While all political parties support the move, the government is still wondering how to finance this significant rise.

"For this year, we have the money. Considering this overwhelming vote, I am convinced that parliament will also vote the financial resources for 2016. We must preserve the decision next year as well," Prime Minister Victor Ponta told lawmakers.

The government has to spend some 390 million euro every year to support the rise in the child benefit alone.

Among the EU countries, Austria, Belgium, Slovenia and Germany have the most generous packages for child benefit, and Romania the least generous, a report says.

Romania is facing a demographic crisis as the population has shrunk by more than 2.6 million since 2001 to some 19.04 million people, according to latest official data.

Many women in Romania have to stay at home to raise their children because of a chronic shortage of daycare facilities. The kindergarten crisis occured after a long decrease in the number of children born each year from 360,000 a year before 1989 to 200,000 per year in 2002. The current figure is around 220,000.

Since the mid-1990s, as a result of major socio-economic changes in Romania, women have delayed marriage and had fewer...