Premium
Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Social Democratic Party (PSD) leader Marcel Ciolacu declared on Tuesday that "it is very good news" that this year's second budget rectification is positive, noting that there are more revenues than expenditures and that he agreed with Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca and the leader of the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR), Kelemen Hunor, that, mainly, all amounts should be redirected to investments and "under no circumstances" should the deficit assumed by agreement with the European Commission be exceeded, told Agerpres.
"According to the institutional duties, rectification is within the Government of Romania and the Prime Minister's purview. I had the information regarding the budget rectification. The number one priority and, ultimately, the red line that the Social Democratic Party imposed was with regard to regulation on electricity. Today's meeting [November 15, ed. n.] was not directly related to the revision. The Minister of Finance has meetings with each individual authorising officer, respectively with each minister. This has been done, I discussed the principles with Mr. President Kelemen Hunor and Mr. Prime Minister a few days ago and each of us said certain things where the amounts should be allocated as a priority, but all three of us spoke the same language, because, mainly, we wanted to redirect all the amounts to investments, trying to save on goods and services, in all departments of all ministries and institutions subordinate to the Government," Marcel Ciolacu told private broadcaster Romania TV.
He appreciated as "good news" the fact that the rectification is positive.
"What is very good news is the second rectification according to the law (...), which is a positive rectification. In other words, we had more income than expenditures. An audit was held, and all three of us agreed that under no circumstances should we exceed the deficit assumed by the agreement of the former right-wing Government with the European Commission, something that will be respected. (...) At this moment, the execution of September was seen in every ministry. One gratifying thing is the fact that we have 15 percent more so far in investments, even if in certain chapters, at least in relation to European funds, at this moment the amounts that we considered when building the state budget have not been attracted. But I continue to praise Mr. Marcel Bolos for his work at the Ministry of European Investments, knowing exactly the disaster he took over from the former minister," added Ciolacu.
The government has completed the analysis for this year's last budget rectification, concluding that it will be positive, with an increase in the revenues of the general consolidated budget by 500 million RON, informs a press release from the Executive sent on Tuesday.
The budget deficit drops from 5.84 percent to 5.74 percent, the cited source states.
"The revision ensures all the necessary amounts for the payment of salary rights and those in the sphere of social assistance, as well as for the proper functioning of all public institutions, until the end of the year," the Government also states.
