Romania will enter a tax and budget adjustment process in 2025, and the rules for managing the country's finances will be much stricter, Finance Minister Marcel Bolos said on Friday evening.
"Next year we will have to enter a process of tax and budget adjustment that also has to include restructuring the public spending system, out of respect for the business community. Not everything has to be on the shoulders of the business community. We have not yet established the measures and we have not finalised them with the European Commission;it is an ongoing negotiating process. The European Commission has now asked for the finalisation of the list of reforms that we are considering to support the adjustment and of course, at the appropriate time, we will also make public this list of reforms," Bolos told private broadcaster Digi 24.
According to the minister, there are two components, one of which is restructuring public spending and the other restructuring of the spending of state-owned enterprises, Agerpres informs.Bolos added that investments will be Romania's priority for the coming years, and the rules for managing the country's finances will be much stricter.
"Everyone knows that we have tax and budget adjustment process that we will start in 2025, when the rules will be much stricter to manage Romania's finances. Everyone knows that we have a volume of investment expenditure and this is Romania's priority for the coming years. We have a maximum level of 8% of investment outlays and we will have to take into account these strategic objectives of the country, because Romania needs development instead of wasteful expenses. Some of them can be greatly diminished or even get rid of."
He added that the measures will not be postponed because of the elections, because Romania is much more important.
"We have a tax and budget structural plan, beyond the electoral campaign, I think Romania is much more important, and this structural fiscal plan must be submitted on October 15 and the adjustment trajectory started on January 1, 2025. These are certain things, without which we risk losing European funds, Romania's most important wealth, without them we would be far behind in terms of development, so our stake is that these EUR 75 billion that Romania has, to implement them as investment budgets. Let's build our highways, the railway infrastructure, let's modernise our schools. This is the priority that Romania also has in terms of economic development. Very important is the support of the business community, which is also Romania's gold in terms of job creation, attracting private investments. The level of private investments generated by the business community increased from RON 150 billion in 2017 to over RON 350 billion in 2023."
Asked if tax increases in 2025 are inevitable, once the tax and budget adjustment process begins, Bolos said that Romania has a commitment approved by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), saying that the measures taken by the Government will lead to a budgetary impact of 2.5% of GDP.
"I would like, out of respect for the business community, not to discuss the issue of rates and taxes, and that is why I have taken these steps so that, when we have to put on the table the package of measures to which we are compelled under the PNRR, the taxation component is as small as possible. I would like it to be zero. That cannot guarantee and I would be totally unbelievable if I were to say that this tax component will be zero. I wish that at the end of the year I could announce that I managed to do that (...) What I want to emphasise and make clear to those who follow us is that we do not mean fiscal measures, we mean a package of global measures that concern the improvement of collection, digitisation, that concern better collection. I would not like to discuss the fiscal measures in any form, because it is unfair to the business community to put the entire fiscal burden on the business community. I would like it to be zero," added Bolos.