Rise In Child Benefit "Starting From July"

Child Benefit in Romania will rise up to 20 euros per month.

The President Klaus Iohannis promulgated a new child benefit law which states the allowance's rise from 42 lei to 84 lei per month (19 euros).

The new payments could be in place from 1st of July, a government representative has told to the Bucharest-based newspaper Evenimentul Zilei.

One of the initiators of the law, Salvati Copiii NGO, said that the rise is "utterly needed" in a country where "the child poverty is 48 per cent, one of the highest in the EU". 

The law has been promoted in Parliament by the conservative opposition and it has been initially accepted by the socialist-lead government coalition "by mistake". 

"We cannot oppose to the child allowance's rise", the prime minister Victor Ponta stated shortly after the opposition's proposal has been adopted. But he said that the initiators did not indicate the source the money will come from.

The socialists said they instead favour an allowance payment according to the parents's income.

3,850,310 children have been entitled to get the allowance in 2012, according to the welfare ministry.

Child benefit in Europe

According to the British newspaper The Telegraph, in 2013 in Germany the child benefit pay was 215 euros per month, one of the highest in the EU, where Romania is a member state.

In Belgium, the child benefit was 160 euros per month. In Ireland was 153 euros per month, Sweden 140 euros, Slovenia 135 euros, Austria 123 euros, Finland 122 euros, Poland 75 euros, Hungary 56 euros, Czech Republic 32 euros, Slovakia 26 euros, Estonia 22 euros and in Latvia - 12 euros per month.