Government approved 2012 budget

Prime Minister Emil Boc explained that the budget for 2012 could be characterised by caution and responsibility.

He said that next year’ priorities were investments and create new jobs.

Citing a report by Eurostat, Emil Boc said at Victoria Palace that Romania had the highest percentage of GDP allocated to investment.

In this context, the prime minister said that the investment expenditure for next year would increase from 36.1 billion to 38.1 billion lei.

Emil Boc explained that investments and new jobs would be supported by two other means: state guarantees and state aid.

For guarantees there were allocated 10 billion lei, while for the state aid there were taken into account two components.

It is about the allocation of 900 billion lei from the Ministry of Finance as state aid schemes that guaranteed the new jobs.

To this amount is added 700 million from the Ministry of Economy, money that will provide the support start-up programs for SMEs and for the young people aiming to start a business.

Meanwhile, the prime minister assured that next year pensions and salaries woud not decrease and VAT, flat tax and state contributions would not be changed.

Government wants to obtain at least 6 billion euros of European funds

Another "fundamental element" of the budget for 2012 is the absorption of European funds.

According to the premier, the government's goal is getting at least 6 billion euros from European funds.
Emil Boc said that the absorption rate of EU funds would be at least 20 percent, and according to estimates it would be somewhere around 25 percent.

The Romanian prime minister said that the budget for 2012 was built on a decreasing inflation and on a balance of the euro-leu exchange rate.

The project starts from a growth of 2 percent and a deficit of 4.4 percent under control that can be funded.
Emil Boc stressed that Romania had one of the lowest debt in the European Union, as only four countries in the Community have lower rates than our country.

Liberals criticise the draft budget

“The opposition representatives criticised the draft budget and said that they might not vote if its amendments were not approved”, Andrei Şerban, the editor informed Radio Romania.

Liberal deputy Eugen Niculescu, who is a member of the Budget Committee, claimed that the budget prepared by the government was illegal.

He stated that it did not stipulate higher salaries and pensions according to the law.

Neither Eugen Nicolescu considers that the budget is balanced.

"The call for caution and the call for balance are valid only in writing. It is all demagoguery because if the premier wanted the draft budget to become reality, he would have indeed cut the huge costs of goods and services, of many other expenses from the national infrastructure development program, of many other expenses from the General Secretariat of the Government, of the excessive additions from the Secret Service."

"So, in other words my point is that this budget is not related to Romania and it relates only to the election year 2012, whom Traian Basescu and Emil Boc want to win, continuing to mock the population", said Eugen Nicolescu.
Moreover, the opposition announced earlier that the next year's budget law must contain 10 amendments, including the cut of the health contributions and argued that if those amendments were not adopted, they would not vote for the 2012 budget.

Translated by: Iulia Florescu
MA student, MTTLC, Bucharest University