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| PRESIDENTIAL EXPLANATIONS DURING THE CRISIS 14/05/2010 |
| (2010-05-14) |
| Last updated: 2010-05-17 11:40 EET |
The president’s proposal to prevent the same thing from happening to Romania is still the one announced last week, namely reducing public sector pensions and salaries and eliminating a number of subsidies and social benefits. This solution has been negotiated with the International Monetary Fund, which is waiting for the application of radical measures to disburse further instalments of its loan to Romania. The alternative to the announced measures is increasing taxes and fees. As far as pensioners are concerned, the president said they might receive their full pensions again if the state budget gets back on track. The president added, however, that a resizing of the budget sector is unavoidable:
“Our goal is to cut spending and reduce the number of budget sector employees. We must reduce their number so that the salary budget established by law, if this law is passed by Parliament, allows for the return to the initial salary levels. There are areas in which this staff reduction is not possible, for example a hospital or a school facing a shortage of personnel.”
The government is pressed for time and might choose to ask Parliament for a confidence vote on its austerity package. The whole set of measures will be discussed on Monday at a meeting between the government and trade unions, who are opposed to the tough plans announced by the authorities. Trade union leader Ovidiu Jurca:
“We understand the country’s finances and the country itself are in a crisis, but we don’t agree that the cost of this crisis should be paid only by the masses. These measures are all about salary amputations, pension amputations and social benefits amputations which affect the majority of ordinary and poor people. These are difficult times, but the burden should be shared by all social categories.”
Employers’ associations support the government’s plans, provided they are accompanied by measures for economic recovery related to investments and creating jobs. The media has been giving extensive coverage to the president’s latest public address. The daily paper Gadul writes that the president tries to allay people’s fears about the future salary and pension cuts. Under the headline “One goes, three get their wages”, the newspaper Romania Libera sums up the president’s forecasts as follows: pensions could again be paid in full starting on the 1st of January 2011 if the austerity measures are successful, while public sector salaries will return to their current value if 25% of state budget employees are sacked.
Jurnalul National, the most radical anti-presidential paper, carries a dramatic headline: “The death curve. The Basescu regime is more destructive than the world war”. Evenimentul Zilei, on the other hand, which is the most pro-Traian Basescu publication, refrains from making any comment and simply carries the president’s opinion according to which changing the government at this point would be adding a political crisis to the economic crisis. What this paper fails to mention, however, is that this is how Romania has been functioning for more than half a year.
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