At the end of marathon debates, which lasted more than eight hours, the plenum of Romania’s Parliament adopted, on Wednesday evening, the state budget and social insurance bills for 2025. The vote came after many tense episodes, which occurred against the backdrop of the rejection by the majority coalition government (PSD-PNL-UDMR) of almost all of the several thousand amendments submitted by the opposition. The budget is based on an economic growth rate of 2.5% and a budget deficit of 7% of the GDP. The finance minister, Tanczos Barna, emphasized that the state budget for 2025 is a moderate one, a budget that is based on a prudent increase in revenues, without exaggerations. As for the state social insurance budget law, it provides primarily for pension payments, the relevant minister emphasized. ‘Regardless of who will be in the government and the finance ministry in three, four, five years, Romania’s commitment to the European Commission should be respected. Step by step, we must reduce the budget deficit, we must at the same time preserve investments. Investments are the engine of the economy, and investments are also preserved in this budget’, said Tanczos Barna.
The budget for 2025 will allow the continuation of the country’s development process, the Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu also showed, who specified that the funds for the health ministry increased by over 30%, the amounts allocated for highways and railways by 20%, and the budget for education by almost 10%.
Marcel Ciolacu: “We’ll not touch the Romanians’ incomes in payment, or the pensions, which last year were increase by an average of 40%, or the salaries, where there was an annual increase of almost 25%, we do not increase the VAT and we do not need IMF money. We have in this budget the largest allocation of resources from European funding since our accession to the European Union.”
From the opposition, the Save Romania Union (USR) MPs and those of the sovereigntist parties (AUR, S.O.S. Romania and POT) criticized the lack of predictability, the overestimation of revenues, the indebtedness of Romanians through the measures provided and the elimination of some fiscal facilities.
USR deputy Claudiu Năsui explains: “The same lies, the same inflated incomes just to justify higher expenses. Because the income part only interests you to justify these expenses that you make year after year, and that you say you want to reduce. This budget hides the same lie of Marcel Ciolacu, exposed year after year.”
Eventually, the two laws were sent to the president for promulgation in the forms proposed by the Government, with very minor changes. (LS)
