Senate head Dragu: Child allowance increase - a political decision that needs to be solidly grounded

Increasing child allowances is a political decision that requires a solid foundation on technical figures, and an analysis of state budget revenues and expenditures will be made in mid-July, after six months of budget execution, Senate Chair Anca Dragu said on Monday, agerpres reports.

"First of all, we need to have the figures on the table, increasing these benefits costs 2 billion lei. A review of revenues and expenditures of the state budget and the general consolidated budget is usually done after six months of budget execution. So, somewhere in mid-July we should look at the budget figures. We know that economic growth has been above expectations, but we must also see how the revenues fare, how the deficit financing stands, because we are still running a very large deficit, so that the decision must be made with the figures on the table. It's a political decision, but it must be very well grounded on technical figures," Dragu explained when asked if the USR PLUS alliance will vote for the increase of the child allowance this summer.

Dragu added that allocations for students' hot meals could be raised by including as many schools as possible in the pilot program begun in 2016.

"I'd say more than that, that we could increase hot meal allocations, for example. Include more schools in this pilot program started in 2016. Only 150 schools are currently included in this program. The children come to school and they need this meal, they need a balanced, healthy and complete diet that will allow them to study, to perform sports activities over the entire day. I'd like all Romanian schools to be included in this program in the medium term. I know that there are constraints, not necessarily financial, but related to space or even to the possibility of delivering food in certain communities, but we must pursue this goal," said the Senate head.