“I cannot afford to push Romania today in a spiral of populist decisions, which would give everyone money at the cost of losing what we have achieved in a few years of austerity. There is a cash deficit that we need to maintain, which stands at 1.9%. We must cling on to that. We cannot afford, at present, to waste public money. But what I can do is to reduce public spending in the ministries that manage large amounts of public funds.”

The Prime Minister also said that a measure intended to offset some of the salary cuts could be a slash in social security contributions. A reduction by three to five percent, the prime minister argued, would entail a well-timed fiscal relaxation. Ungureanu also spoke about the need for budget revenues to be increased by levying taxes on the economic sectors substantially affected by tax evasion, about investment transparency and about re-channeling public funds towards highly feasible projects. As for the dialogue with the local business environment, he said in the coming two weeks a consultative council might be established, which would be in permanent contact with the government.

Another priority, according to Ungureanu, is to assist the private business companies that are reliable tax payers, in expanding their operations outside the EU market. The Prime Minister thus reiterated an idea put forth by the president, who warned that Romanian exports focused, almost exclusively, on European markets. Ungureanu explained that the diversification of sales markets, particularly in the complex economic context of the Eurozone, might provide substantial benefits to the Romanian economy, which faced major problems in 2009 and 2010 because of the global economic crisis.