FinMin Citu: I would prefer to come up with a budget for next year as soon as possible

The Minister of Finance on Wednesday evening told Digi 24 private television broadcaster that he would prefer to come up with a budget for next year as soon as possible, and not to wait until December.

"We have prepared the financing for this year. We know exactly every chapter of the budget. I don't want to wait until the end of the year, I want to come up with a budget to present it as soon as possible for next year," said the Minister of Finance.

He stressed that there are regular meetings with President Klaus Iohannis on European funds, on the package received from the European Commission.

"At all these meetings we are having very concrete talks, we come up with questions that we need to ask the Commission in order to make sure that, when the plan is drawn up and approved, there are no such projects that we cannot introduce because we didn't ask for the exact conditions. (..) We want to draw all this money. That's why we are looking at the budget burden for the next period," Citu explained.

Regarding the 40 per cent increase in pensions, the minister reiterated that this would have created very big problems in terms of the Government's credibility in front of foreign investors, "because no one would have thought that we could finance yourself."

"This year would have meant an additional 12 billion lei to the budget. This means 1.2 per cent of GDP this year alone. Next year would have been 30 billion lei and so on. Enormous additional amounts to the budget (...) We would have been downgraded immediately by the rating agencies if this had happened, and of course, all our international markets would have closed, but that does not mean that we will not get there with the increase in pensions, and it is very important to read the pension law, for it says very clearly that this growth should be staggered. So, in the end, we respect exactly the spirit of the law," pointed out Florin Citu.