An 11 percent increase in pensions, as proposed by the Social Democrats, would be a "fair" level and would come as a compensation for those whose purchasing power has been seriously dented lately, spokesman of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) Radu Oprea said on Monday.
"PSD asserts with arguments that pensions must increase by 11 percent. Simulations on the financial impact of this measure are being run, there will be further discussions, that's why the Budget-Finance chapter of the governing program (under negotiation with the National Liberal Party) was not closed," Oprea said at the end of the PSD National Political Council meeting.
"This is actually about coming up with compensation measures for those whose purchasing power is severely affected. With inflation at over 7.9 percent and real inflation even higher, because the daily basket of products low-income categories use daily has grown by 10-plus percent more expensive, a measure to offset the dwindling purchasing power is a must. 11 percent is a fair figure, from our point of view," the PSD spokesman said.
According to him, fighting tax evasion can help increase budget revenues so as to cover the proposed pension rise.
"A very serious source of revenues must be the curbing of tax evasion, of smuggling. (...) Of course, I don't encourage anyone to smoke, but you may have seen that the tobacco industry has become the main contributor to the state budget during this period. And you know why? Because cross-border smuggling has dropped amid lesser transit figures. So, there are measures we can identify, we can learn from this period so as to manage these aspects and increase revenues to the state coffers," said Radu Oprea, Agerpres informs.