PM Bolojan: Pay law allows the collection of European money, correcting imbalances

Interim Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan says that the uniform public pay law, even if it is not perfect, allows Romana to draw funds under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) and the start of a process of correcting the imbalances in the public sector.

"From my point of view, even if it is not a perfect law; just think that it was worked on for two years by the Ministry of Labor under a based on a financing agreement with the World Bank, in which pay grade analyses were made with the countries of the European Union, with the corrections, with the grids that were established in these countries. We have taken note of our possibilities and so it is a law that is based on in-depth studies. It is not perfect, but it is what we can do, on the one hand, to collect our European money, with which we can finance investments and, on the other hand, to start a process of correcting the imbalances in the public sector in Romania," Bolojan told B1 TV private broadcaster on Monday evening.

He denied the accusations that the government would try to pass the responsibility for the adoption of the PNRR laws to Parliament.

"It is not a question of shifting the responsibility from the government to Parliament, but it is the only possibility for these laws to be adopted - the use of the main prerogative of the Romanian Parliament - namely the debate and approval of these bills, which I believe that Romanians deserve - if necessary, an extraordinary session, if not two, as many as necessary, so that we can meet these conditions," Bolojan said.

He added that Romania has a public pay pool of RON 166 billion in 2026 that cannot be increased by more than RON 12 billion in 2027.

"Romania, no matter who is at rule, cannot afford to increase the pay pool by more than that amount, because that's all our economy allows us, because we have some limits that we cannot exceed - namely staff expenses to be 8.1% of Romania's Gross Domestic Product."

The interim prime minister also said that, if he fails to pass the pay law, Romania will lose 770 million euros in PNRR funds.

"Unfortunately, the labour ministers postponed it until the last moment, running away from this responsibility," he said.

Sursă: stiripesurse