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Prime Minister Ciolacu announces budget deficit could reach 5.7%
Romania's budget deficit could increase, this year, up to 5.7%, as a result of the implementation of the law on fiscal-budgetary measures for which the Government pledged responsibility in the Parliament, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu declared on Wednesday in Kyiv.
He says that the new deficit target could be assumed through a budget rectification that could take place in the next period.
"When Mr. Citu pushed the deficit from 2.7% to 9.2%, I did not see anyone take a bottle of gasoline to set themselves on fire in any market or on any television because he destroyed this country, making a bigger deficit by 100 billion lei. Moreover, I didn't see anyone set themselves on fire when he took the external debt from 37% to 50%, which meant another 100 billion lei. A prime minister from the PSD came and in three months it is a disaster that we do not close the deficit as assumed by a hypocrite from 4.4% and we hope to close with 5.5% - 5.7%. Suddenly it became an extraordinary problem. Romania is economically stable," said Ciolacu.
Referring to the decision of the Constitutional Court of Romania to reject, on Wednesday, the notification of the Save Romania Union (USR) on the draft law on fiscal-budgetary measures, the prime minister accused the USR leaders of hypocrisy.
Romania posted the EU's second-highest annual inflation rate and highest among EU member states in Southeast Europe (SEE) in September, at 9.2%, the EU's statistical office said on Wednesday.
In comparison, Greece recorded the lowest annual inflation among EU members in SEE last month, at 2.4%, against an EU average of 4.9%, Eurostat said in a data release.
In monthly terms, Greece's inflation rate was the highest in the region in September, at 1.9%, whereas consumer prices in the EU overall rose by 0.3% from their level in August.
Croatia and Bulgaria, on the other hand, saw monthly declines in their consumer prices, at 0.7% and 0.3%, respectively.