Raluca Turcan: Reducing state budget subsidy does not mean slashing budget allocated to ministry

The budget rectification proposal for the Labor Ministry provides for a reduction by 3.3 billion lei in the subsidy granted from the state budget to the social insurance budget, which reflects the increase in revenues collected from employees' contributions, the Minister of Labour and Social Protection, Raluca Turcan wrote on Monday, on Facebook.

"At this moment, the BASS [Social and Health Insurance Budget, ed.n.] no longer needs the subsidy of 16.77 billion lei from the state budget, provided at the beginning of the year, but only 13.4 billion lei. The increase in investments by 32.4 percent compared to the same period last year and the measures to support the business environment - measures for employees and employers, labor flexibility, debureaucratization, digitalization of labor relations also had an impact on the labor market, so that, starting with January until now, 120,000 new active contracts and just as many new entrants to the labor market have been registered," Minister Turcan said.

She added that "reducing the state budget subsidy does not mean slashing the budget allocated to the Ministry of Labour", and "the necessary amounts for the payment of pensions, social benefits and other rights are provided for in the social insurance budget and will be paid on time to beneficiaries, as before".

Raluca Turcan also mentioned that the proposal for the ministry's budget revision also provides for an increase of 547 million lei to balance the unemployment budget, "as a result of the increase in expenditures for the application of the active measures aimed at employees and employers."