The budget deficit for 2024 will realistically be around 5% of the GDP, Finance Minister Marcel Bolos said on Wednesday evening.
"We are now closing the budget deficit at around 5.7%, which will be the basis for the new Convergence Programme that we will have with the European Commission. Realistically speaking, going through the consecutive measures we have taken to reduce the budget deficit, it will be (the deficit in 2024, editor's note) around 5% of GDP," Bolos told Digi24 private television broadcaster.
The minister pointed out that Romania is among the countries with "quite substantial" deficits and that a group of 10 countries will enter the excessive deficit procedure. The measures aimed at a better collection, taxation digitisation are a priority, he said, explaining that the tax adjustment is a long-term process.
He also pointed out that at the ECOFIN meeting, Romania's attention was drawn to the continuation of the fiscal adjustment process.
According to the minister, the official communication is made to the European Commission in April, after which the Commission has to report in June on the financial situation of the member states for the year 2023.
Asked why no budget revision was made in 2023, the Finance minister said that "it would have been a very big mistake," involving the risk of EU funds suspension, therefore the budget revision was replaced by using the budget reserve fund and capping expenses, from 6.87% to 5.7% of the GPD, which meant over 16 billion lei savings in expenditure, which meant a lot.
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