“Ministers Marcel Boloș and Marius Budai negotiate special pensions in Brussels for PNRR funding”

The Minister of Investments and European Projects, Marcel Boloș, will go to Brussels together with the Minister of Labour, Marius Budai, for negotiations within the PNRR, regarding special pensions.

“We are a government team and we must go together and participate together, I confirm this. On Tuesday we have the meeting with the European Commission to basically resume the discussions on special pensions and see what are the additional requests that the Commission has, especially for what payment request number 3 means, where we have the reform of special pensions, the reform of corporate governance of state. We have to implement the milestone of what decarbonisation means. So all these are heavy pieces for what it means to collect the money for payment request number 3 and which requires a joint governmental effort”, said Minister Marcel Boloș on Saturday evening, on Antena 3.

He said his role is to ensure predictability.

“The criteria, especially for reforms, are not easy at all. They are really hard for Romania and which require a restructuring of the public spending system that Romania has and which are backed by important budgets and funds allocated from the state budget”, Boloș also said, according to Mediafax.

“Our mission is to convince the Commission”

Marcel Boloș said that it will not be an easy negotiation, but the ministers have prepared for this moment and must have the arguments related to the inflation rate and the elimination of inequities in the general pension system that will bring an increase in expenses from the general system of pensions significant enough to require a new reset of this indicator of financial discipline.

Asked what he proposed before leaving for Brussels, the minister said that “we have simulations done on what the subsequent evolution of the volume of expenses generated by the general pension system means, as well as the evolution of GDP over the period of 50 years which we have in the content of the milestone as a constraint period and certainly, our mission is to convince the Commission that this indicator should also be replaced by one of financial discipline, but which does not limit these expenses, so that the Government has the opportunity to make decisions regarding the adjustment of pensions or even the increase, without being bound by this weight that I mentioned of 9.4 percent of GDP over a period of 50 years”.