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USR's Ghinea: Postponement of CCR decision on special pensions - we won't see a penny from PNRR in 2023
Cristian Ghinea, coordinator of the Save Romania Union (USR)'s Public Policy Department and former Minister of Investments and European Projects, criticized the postponement of the Constitutional Court (CCR)'s decision regarding referrals to the special pension laws and the possibility to combine a salary and a pension in the public system, arguing that Romania will no longer see a penny from Romania's National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) in 2023, told Agerpres.
"Payment request number 3 had to be submitted, according to the calendar agreed with the European Commission, at the end of May. They couldn't do it because they were late with payment request number 2, they didn't meet all the milestones, the payment was anyway only approved partially. The government announced that it wants to submit it this summer, which is not possible as long as the special pensions law is at the CCR. The postponement for September means that this year we will not see any money from the PNRR, even if the government, by a miracle , succeeds in making all the other milestones plus finishing the negotiations on the PNRR amendment," Ghinea said, according to a press release from the USR sent on Wednesday.
According to Ghinea, even in the case of rejection of the notifications submitted by the High Court of Cassation and Justice, it is impossible to access the money from PNRR because the evaluation period lasts from two months upwards.
"Based on the experience with the previous requests, it is clear that we will enter the 2024 election year with a huge deficit in investments from the PNRR. Investments of 13.3 billion euros were launched - highways, hospitals, education, etc. at the end of Ciuca's mandate and it is still accumulating. Instead, we only collected around 9, if we include the money from Payment Request number 2, partially approved, but not yet transferred. At the same time, the Government actually spent only around 800 million of this money. At year, all their mayors who are now bragging about the investments started in the PNRR will start squealing for money. of money," Ghinea wrote on Facebook.
He mentioned that the Special Pensions Law was supposed to be ready last year.
"They messed it up in the Parliament. It was clear that the cutting of special pensions will not be done without the opposition of the system. And now they are firmly in the hands of some super special ones, the judges from the CCR. Appointed by PSD, PNL and Iohannis. The perfect blockage that will explode in front of us in 2024. There are billions of euros that we are not collecting in the conditions in which the deficit is exploding. These are Social Democratic Party (PSD) and National Liberal Party (PNL) specialists," Cristian Ghinea also wrote.
The CCR postponed until August 2 the discussion of referral to the High Court of Cassation and Justice regarding special pensions. Also, the discussion of the notification in connection with the law on cumulating the pension with the salary was postponed for September 21.
