The budget planning for 2021 is completed and will be published for consultations on Tuesday or Wednesday morning (February 9-10) at the latest, announced prime minister Florin Citu quoted by Agerpres.

He stressed that the deficit target remains at 7-7.1% of the GDP.

PM Citu and the head of the senior ruling party PNL, Ludovic Orban, announced measures to consolidate the public deficit from nearly 9.9% of GDP last year - which allowed the opposition to speak about an “austerity budget.” 

PM Citu referred to the subsidies for state-owned companies, which will be lower this year.  The Government will extend subsidies only to the state companies that are profitable, PM Citu said (yet it remains unclear why such companies would need subsidies). He added that those that are not profitable would need to come up with a restructuring strategy to get subsidies.

The Government received no such restructuring strategy from the troubled state-owned companies, despite warning them about the need for such documents as a prerequisite for getting subsidies, PM Citu stated.

Separately, Liberal leader Orban announced a series of measures with positive impact on budget consolidation yet likely to generate social tensions: the pensions will increase again no sooner than January 2022 (and even then, only to be indexed for inflation and part of the real rise of the average wages), there might be fewer holiday vouchers for the employees in the budgetary sector and the students might no longer be allowed to travel by train for free as before.

(Photo: Gov.ro)

andrei@romania-insider.com