PM Boc expresses continued support for austerity measures

Prime Minister Emil Boc expressed further support on Tuesday for the Government’s austerity measures, comparing Romania with a family which, faced with economic crisis conditions, cannot get other loans if it spends the money „every day at the pub”.

„Financiers very closely scrutinize those they lend the money to. If they see not a credible system of economic sustainability of the public spending in that country, they do not lend the funds… It is exactly like in a family – you need to borrow money to cover the daily spending until you succeed to produce as much as you consume.
But if they (financiers – editor’s note) look at the family and see that its members go daily to the pub, or throw the money on parties, the question is if there is somebody willing to further provide loans to such a family?”

No one!”, concluded Boc in the Senate’s plenary session gathered in an extraordinary session to debate the Government’s Emergency ordinance on increasing VAT from 19 percent to 24 percent. The Premier underlined that the Executive seeks to cut the public spending from 9.8 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, as last year’s, to 7.4 percent of the GDP in 2011.

In the context, the Premier reiterated that the Government is looking for some alternative measures to sustain economy, among which the elimination of the minimum tax, the possibility of selling the minority stakes held by the states in some companies and to „gather financial resources in a development fund to be solely used for the absorption of the European funds, investments in Romania and implicitly for the creation of jobs”.