Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă declared on Monday, in Focșani, that he asked the ministers to present him with solutions to reduce budget expenses by Wednesday, but he ruled out cutting the salaries of budget workers or investments, informs News.ro.
Romanian banknotesPhoto: Inquam Photos / Octav Ganea
- “We discussed and asked at the press conference following the meeting of the Political Bureau, and now I ask all those who deliver information and ask questions to government officials, so that we do not induce an absolutely unjustified panic among the population.
- Each of these options are discussed when it comes to the consideration of the state budget and of course each of them can constitute an analysis, but I gave the task in the government that every option be discussed less the one regarding salaries and the one regarding investments.”, Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă declared on Monday.
The Prime Minister claimed that the Government is not considering new tax increases in the next period, but rather a better collection of taxes.
At the same time, the head of the Government mentioned that the governors have the responsibility towards the Romanians and they cannot come to scare them with regard to the loss of jobs or the reduction of salaries, and in this sense he asked the ministers to present them by Wednesday, April 12 proposals to reduce expenses.
- “We are not discussing new taxes at this moment. I assume any decision I make, and this is regarding responsibility. It is our responsibility towards the Romanians.
- We cannot come now and scare them that they are going to be without jobs or without wages. Because there are solutions available to the Government.
- I asked the ministers that by Wednesday they should come and present me with a basic situation with how they can calculate their expenses. It is absolutely normal.
- There are a whole series of budget lines that can be managed so that we reduce spending,” said the prime minister quoted by Agerpres.
Marcel Boloş spoke regarding the reduction in the number of budget officers and salary reductions among them
The Minister of Investments and European Funds, Marcel Boloș, said on Saturday, on Antena 3, for the first time, that in order to balance the budget and comply with the tasks assumed through the PNRR, the government might review the salaries of budget workers or even reduce their number.
“We currently have a salary expense in the budget system of around 110 billion lei. The condition we have, imposed in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, is the one related to sustainability, having all the experience and, let’s say, this negotiation procedure with the reform regarding special pensions, and the way in which the European Commission poses the problem for sustainability on these options, we said it is possible that we are heading towards either a revision of salaries in the budget system, or a potential reduction in the number of budget officers, but this will be decided by the coalition at the right time,” said Boloș.
The government started to cut 20 billion lei in expenses, which was confirmed by the Minister of Finance Adrian Câciu, following finding that they made a mistake in the budget for 2023, as HotNews.ro also showed.
Boloș says that the recent statements regarding the fact that they have to reduce expenses by 20 billion lei will easily lead to these reforms that the Commission is asking for.
Revenue growth has slowed / High risks for Romania
If in the past years we had a greater increase in tax collections (inflation played an important role last year – it helped the state a lot), this year the phenomenon subsided.
The value of the increase in collected taxes is 22.3 percentage points lower than the increase recorded as a ratio between the activity of the first two months of 2022 and 2021.
From the point of view of amounts, there was a decrease in the growth rate of receipts from 11.688 billion lei (difference 2022 compared to 2021) to 4.822 billion lei (difference 2023 compared to 2022), thus 6.866 billion lei lower.
The difference is found almost entirely in the top 10 economic activities as a share in the total receipts strictly from economic activities.
Romania’s risks are also particularly high regarding the exchange rate because we are facing twin deficits: current account deficit and budget deficit.
