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President Klaus Iohannis believes that there is no risk of Romania entering an austerity scenario, pointing out that the solution at this moment would be to increase the level of collection.
"All kinds of scenarios are being discussed. The only scenario that we refused in all the discussions with the coalition was the austerity scenario. We know that austerity does not solve problems. We had this attempt during the last crisis, 2008, 2009, 2010, and tried at the European level to fix the crisis through austerity and the results were not good. So austerity is not a solution. The solution lies in using the money that exists judiciously, so that means limiting public spending to what is necessary, not cutting from where it shouldn't, and on the other hand we still have quite a lot of money that is not collected. So the degree of collection must be increased. From my point of view, there is no risk of entering an austerity scenario, nor should we look for it, nor should it be promoted," said Iohannis, in a press conference held in far eastern Tulcea county, agerpres reports.
"In my opinion, it is not a solution. But, if in the short term, it is found, with the help of experts, that certain measures must be put into practice, the government can probably promote them. The increase of VAT or the decrease of VAT have been discussed many times as a whole. Now I don't think it's a solution. In my opinion, the solution consists in increasing the level of collection. That is, to collect the money that belongs to the state budget," Klaus Iohannis added.
