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Cristian Ghinea, deputy chair of the Save Romania Union (USR) and former Minister of European Investments and Projects, estimates that the implementation of measures supported by the Social Democrat Party (PSD), if they enter government, would exceed 30 billion RON.
He drew attention over the fact that Romania mustn't exceed, this year, a budget deficit of 8 pct of the GDP, and next year of 6.2 pct of the GDP.
In a Facebook post, Ghinea urges the Liberals to leave the Finance Ministry for the Social Demorats, because he wants to see how they build the budget for 2022.
According to the former MEP, pension increases would imply 24.3 billion RON, and the increase of children's allowances would incur 3 billion RON. He shows the lack of a predictable formula for pension increases risks "blowing up" the National Plan for Recovery and Resilience (PNRR).
"After last week, [when] the PSD asked imperiously for the application of the law, today they backtracked on it. A pension increase of 11 pct. Why 11 pct and not 10.5 or 11.5? Mystery. Somebody in the PSD started crocheting the budget and lost track. This solves the issue with the PNRR? Obviously not. Whether Olguta enforces the law entirely or whether they come with a lower figure for no reason it's opposite of what we need for the PNRR: a predictable formula, based on statistical factors, applied automatically each year," Ghinea shows.
In the opinion of the USR deputy chair, the law to cap the energy prices represents a "budget bomb", because "it imposes a mechanism by which the state promises to give some money to energy companies, to account for the price difference." Cristian Ghinea mentions that capping the price "sounds good as PR" but implies moving all costs to the budget. He estimates that the measure would have a budgetary impact of "at least" 3 billion RON.
Ghinea added, however, that the total of 30 billion RON would represent "just the PSD's shortlist" and that this sum could be compounded by the impact of other measures supported by the social-democrats, "all sorts of general proposals that certainly cost, but nobody knows how much."
