FinMin Teodorovici: 2019 budget draft to be sent to Parliament early December

Finance Minister Eugen Teodorovici announced the budget draft is due to be approved and sent to Parliament for debate early December. “We can enter [parliamentary debate, ed.n.] concurrently because, so to say, it is clear that the Pension Law will pass before the budget one, so as to include the effects of the Pension Law in the 2019 budget. Not next week, the following week, this would be the plan,” Eugen Teordorovici said in Parliament on Tuesday. Asked whether there is still room to cut back the VAT to 18 percent from 19 percent, the minister said: “”Here, in the coming days, because we have to finalize the 2019 budget, you will see all the measures, whether we are talking about a VAT at 18 percent, whether we are talking about dividends at zero, which was also a measure of the governing program – you will find them all there, one way or another, in the 2019 budget concept.” He added that the new pension law will be found in the draft budget for 2019: “An increase in the pension point by 15 percent as of September 2019, and next year’s impact is 8.4 billion (lei).” The minister specified in the context of the budget discussion that the analysis regarding the efficiency of the budgetary apparatus is continued and made reference to a proposal published on the Ministry of Finance’s website regarding the vacancies. “We, even if we budget the institutions next year to their full capacity, nothing prevents us from saying that by the end of the year these measures will be taken, but the impact on the budget, that reduction, will come into effect as of February, March, because there are some legal thresholds that we must go through when such measures are eventually taken. Such an approach, of streamlining the public structures must be carried out regardless of whoever says or whatever they say, one way or another. It is a logical and common sense matter,” Teodorovici said. The Finance Minister attended a debate on Tuesday in Parliament on dual university education organized by INTACT Professional Debates, Kaufland Romania and the University of Economic Studies, attended, among others, by the Ministers of Education and European Affairs, Ecaterina Andronescu and Rovana Plumb.

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