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PSD (Social Democratic Party) will join the National Trade Union Bloc (BNS) in fighting "this regime that wants to impose austerity by force," leader of the Social Democrats Marcel Ciolacu stated on Thursday, while he participated in the national congress of this trade union organisation, according to AGERPRES.
"PSD will stand by the BNS in fighting this regime that wants to impose austerity by force. After this budget of national humiliation was voted without the voice of the Romanians being heard, we understand that the only solution is to join the students, the employees and pensioners of this country in their protests. Like me, many of those present here experienced such moments in 1996-2000, when another austerity alliance brought the country close to bankruptcy in 2009-2010, when a regime of which many of the dignitaries of the current power belong cut pensions and salaries, in order to keep intact their part of the budget, the one that was meant for stealing," Ciolacu said at the national congress of the BNS.
He added that the Social Democrats, with the support of the BNS specialists, had drafted laws such as budget salaries and pensions, and this was possible because the two sides had "a common vision of the country's development in the European Union."
"If we want to fight poverty and to stop the exodus of workforce and have resources for education and health, we must pay Romanians better in their country. That is why we have started a process of convergence of salaries and wages in our government. We increased the minimum wage by 67pct and the minimum pension by 76pct and the result was a gain in welfare for employees, who felt a 25pct increase in their purchase power, and these policies meant that 2 millions of Romanians have escaped extreme poverty. (...) And now Citu came with the long scythe of austerity and reaped everything we had built together. This logical step of bringing the income of Romanians to the level of that of the French, Italians or Austrians was brutally stopped and it will take huge efforts and solidarity to resume it. (...) My message is that we need each other more than ever, because we are in the middle of a war. This is the austerity that Citu established, a war of a cynical power against all the people who live honestly from their salary," Ciolacu stated.
