Fmr Finmin Teodorovici: I will give new Public Finance minister a draft budget

The former Public Finance minister, Eugen Teodorovici, announced on Monday evening that he will give his successor a draft budget that would reflect firstly the sums necessary to increase the earnings of Romanians, and if those disappear then he will submit amendments. 

"I will give the new Public Finance minister a draft budget that I desire, when it reaches Parliament, will reflect firstly the sums necessary so that all the earnings of Romanians [increase], I am referring here to salaries, pensions, as the laws in force today provide for. Furthermore, the sums necessary to develop local communities, everything that means bills for government projects, we know very well: PNDL 1, PNDL 2, the Investment and Development Fund and any other investment at the central or local level. If not, if these sums won't be found in the budget proposed by the Orban Government, certainly that in Parliament these amendments will be brought to the 2020 state budget, so that everything we've assumed for the years to come actually happens from an economic point of view," Eugen Teodorovici said, at the conference presenting his stocktaking report. 

He stated that the budget deficit in ESA terms for 2020 is planned at 2.92 pct of the GDP, in 2021 at 2.99 pct, and in 2022 at 2.74 pct. 

In what regards estimating budget revenues for the 2020-2022 period, the former Finance minister claimed that the former Dancila government had in view the fiscal-budgetary measures approved, as well as increasing the excise tax for tobacco, mentioning that this is an obligation of Romania, that if not taken might lead to infringement procedures. Teodorovici mentioned that the future Finance minister has time until the end of the year to reach the budgetary deficit target, of 3 pct of the GDP. 

Asked if increasing pensions and salaries could bring budgetary imbalance, Eugen Teodorovici answered that "if something bad happens in economy it will be due to the incompetence that the people in public jobs will prove".