Tanczos Barna: The year 2025 will mean a deficit of 7 percent
Romania ended the year 2024 with a deficit of 8.6%, and the year 2025 will mean a seven percent deficit, says the Minister of Finance, Tanczos Barna, on Thursday.
Tanczos Barna: The year 2025 will mean a deficit of 7 percent
Tanczos Barna declared, on Thursday evening, at Antrena 3 CNN, that 2024 “was a difficult year for Romania, from all points of view. It was an election year with many elections, with an election campaign. It was a year in which pensions were recalculated, salaries were increased in several areas and investments were supported with unprecedented amounts. And I think this is the most important element of the 2024 budget, even if the year ended with a deficit of 8.6. We will have the final figures tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, probably”.
Barna specifies that it was very important that in 2024 Romania concluded a seven-year agreement with the European Commission, in which it proposed to fall within a 3% deficit targeted by all member states of the European Union in seven years .
“So let’s go down from this deficit of over 8% to 3% in seven years. This calendar created with the Commission, these macroeconomic indicators must be respected. We must keep our word, so that we are also credible in front of the investors who come to Romania, the investors who buy Eurobonds issued by Romania, the investors who lend the Romanian state to finance this deficit. The year 2025 will mean a deficit of 7 percent. And, indeed, it is a challenge that in the conditions in which we want to keep the amounts allocated for investments, we have to pay salaries at the level of November and pensions at the level of November 2024. We have to support the education system, the health system, all public institutions to fit into this deficit”, says the minister.
He mentions that 2025 must be the year to start creating that lean state that does not collect taxes to “get fat” and to hire even more and provide the same services with a larger number of employees, with higher costs. “And to keep the level of services, to improve them through digitalization, by offering these advantages of the 21st century, but, at the same time, to succeed in making a more flexible state with institutions that focus on the citizen, the entrepreneur, those who pay taxes and I think it is also the first year, the year 2024, when tax payers saw that something is being done rationally with their money. Motorways are being built, they were built many water and sewage systems in the country and in small towns. New gas networks were built in Anghel Saligny, from the largest programs that are financed from the state budget. So it is a year with good and bad and our objective for the year 2025 is once again stability, moderation in the administration of public money, a commitment to all those who had increased salaries and increased pensions, that who received what in November 2024 will receive every month in 2025 and we will keep the amounts for investments”.
Asked how long this freezing of pensions and salaries will last, Tanczos Barna said that “as soon as we have sufficient resources, we will recover these postponed indexations”.
“The year 2025 must be a year of solidarity and all those who pay taxes and fees, those who benefit from the payment of these fees and taxes, all those who administer public money, let us focus on streamlining the activity in public institutions” , the Minister of Finance also said.
Source: www.mediafax.ro
