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Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Marcel Ciolacu, the national leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), said on Monday that he told PSD's ruling coalition partners that completing energy legislation and repealing special pensions are priorities, so that the finance minister may then build the national budget to make the deficit fit the projections for 2023 and see how much state pensions can increase, told Agerpres.
"In my opinion, let's increase [pensions ] even by more than the inflation rate, so that we can be very calm. You can't build a budget, that's what I try to tell my coalition colleagues and they get very nervous, and even to Mr President: you can't build a sound budget if you haven't solved the energy problem, because you have nowhere to get the money. (...) My opinion is that energy legislation is the first priority; let's settle it with the ordinance in Parliament. Secondly, let's settle together the special pensions, because we also have a milestone before December 31, and from that moment the finance minister can say very clearly how we fit into the deficit next year," said Ciolacu, when asked about the percentage with which state pensions can be increased.
