Financiarul

2020 budget is a continuation of the policy started in 2009 and agreed in the framework of the foreign financing package with the financial institutions – the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the World Bank – stated on Wednesday, in the Parliament, the caretaker Minister of Finance Gheorghe Pogea.

In the official’s opinion, this launched reform process should be continued in 2010 budget the next Government must assume within a deficit limited to 5.9 percent of the GDP because “this is the correct path Romania should follow in the coming years to consolidate its fiscal position, to be sure it has sufficient resources generated by its own economy to be able to invest”.

Gheorghe Pogea drew attention that, in case the Government nominated by the Prime Minister designate Lucian Croitoru fails to garner the Parliament’s approval, the current political crisis will take longer.
“The future Government should be approved as soon as possible because it has the task to draw up the budget on 2010, the current Government being the ousted one. The budget should be voted by this year-end.

The sooner the budget is finalized, the sooner we will have an outlook. MFP continued to draft the budget, collaborating with the main public employers. Now, on the occasion of IMF and EC delegations presence we can conciliate and come up with a better outlook as for revenues and spending in 2010. We are also in possession of the autumn economic outlook of the European Commission, and we also take into account these financial prospects. We are working. But the issue is the procedure”, stressed the Finance Minister.

On the other hand Pogea underlined that Boc Government attained all nine-months deficit targets. “The second set of political decisions on the fiscal responsibility law the current Government updated must be submitted to the Parliament by Nov 31.
We receive institutions’ observations in the sense to improve it. We also finalized the unitary wage system bill, part of the reform package with the education and agencies restructuring bills.

We expect that on Dec. 9 the Constitutional Court take a decision to this end. The third is the unitary public pension system reform bill. It was sent to the Parliament. Surely observations can lead to its improvement. Therefore, the current Government made all the efforts to promote these bills, concluded the caretaker Finance Minister.