Romania will achieve this year the level of wages in the public sector similar to the pre-crisis period, so all adjustment efforts have been eroded, Fiscal Council Chairman Ionut Dumitru said on Wednesday, at a conference organized by the European Commission Representation in Romania.
“In regard to the wage level in the public sector, it has been adjusted, and in recent years it has started increasing again. The estimates show that we will reach in 2018 the same wage level before the crisis. Thus, all the adjustment efforts have been eroded, the social bill is at the pre-crisis level. This is also true for the social assistance. If we look at public investment, they have reached the minimum level of the past 15 years, probably about 3% of GDP, although in the fiscal-budgetary strategies they have been projected to increase, in fact they have declined constantly,” Ionut Dumitru said, according to capital.ro.
He noted that public investments have been the source of budget adjustment when needed.
According to Dumitru, the tax revenues collected are extremely low in Romania, only 25.6% of GDP in 2017, compared to a European average of 40%.
“We are talking in vain about European infrastructure, about European social services, because there is such a huge difference between the European average and our level of tax collection and tax revenues. If we look at our neighbour, Bulgaria, it has reached 29.5%. This means almost 4 points of GDP more than us. If we had the revenues of Bulgaria, we would register a budget surplus,” Ionut Dumitru added.