UDMR's Kelemen: Gov't should postpone investments that do not increase living standard in coming years

UDMR (Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania) leader Kelemen Hunor believes that investments that do not increase the quality of life, the living standard, can be postponed for a period of two to four years, claiming that we can give up, at this moment, "on building more stadiums."

Asked on Monday evening during a talk show on Digi 24 private television broadcaster which investments would the UDMR say that can be interrupted, at least for a period, and resumed later, when the state budget allows it, Kelemen Hunor replied: "Those investments that do not increase the quality of life, the living standard in the coming years. We can give up building more stadiums, for instance, for 2-3-4 years. I don't think that would be a tragedy, in the context in which we haven't had large investments for 30 or so years, so we can postpone those that haven't started yet."

He also spoke about prioritising small investments.

"There are smaller investments everywhere, which need to be checked, prioritised, postponed, but there is also a legal issue that need to be solved. Because, if you stop, for instance, ongoing investments, then the costs will be even higher. Plus, you will end up in court. We need to see which are those investments that are pending in the following years, and not just in 2025 - because the credit commitments also count in the deficit -, and which did not reach the procedure until there was an order to start the works. And there you can still reduce a few tens of billions. I think that, from this point of view, everyone will understand a prioritisation," stated Kelemen Hunor.

The UDMR leader also referred to a phasing of certain investments, such as those in photovoltaic panels.

"We need to identify those investments, and here, again, it's a long discussion, which put pressure on the budget, but I think that we will be ok if we don't pay for all the tens of thousands of photovoltaic panels in the next 2-3 years. Because we have a storage problem, anyway, right now, and not a production problem, there is this imbalance. And then you can say to yourself: oh my, ok, you won, you'll receive this amount, but in 2 years, in 3 years. You will impact 20, 25, 30 thousand people this way, but not the entire population. So, there are areas where investments can be cut, investments can be prioritised, phased," said Kelemen Hunor.