Florin Cîțu: Hasty pay reform will raise public sector salaries

“You can’t draft a pay law in a month; that’s utopian and nonsensical. If you haven’t done it by now – goodbye. It’s clear we lack the political will to reform this sector, but you can’t rush a law out at the last minute, as it will likely be a bad law that creates more problems than it solves.”

Cîțu shared these insights during an interview with RFI, emphasizing that the current draft of the bill is linked to 770 million euros from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). He criticized the government’s approach, stating, “On the one hand, it’s clear that those in charge don’t understand what it means to carry out reform. Reform isn’t just about passing a law a few days before the deadline to check off a milestone. This law was included in the PNRR to reform the public sector pay system in Romania. That doesn’t happen overnight. Initially, it was supposed to take two years. Although the deadline was extended to 2026, you can’t just produce a version in the last month and consider that a reform.”

As a former Minister of Finance, he contends that “even if it passes – let’s assume, by some miracle, that this law passes – it won’t be a reform; it will simply be another law that raises salaries in the public sector, but it won’t constitute a genuine reform because you can’t enact something significant in a month. The goal isn’t just to check off a milestone in the PNRR; the goal was to implement reform in the public sector.”

The pay law should incorporate performance criteria in the public sector

Cîțu also argues that the pay law should incorporate performance criteria in the public sector: “You must create a pay system that motivates people not only to work in the public sector but also to perform well. It’s not just about raising salaries in the public sector. We know one fact: the salary law increases the total salary budget by 12 billion lei. A reform that merely adds 12 billion lei in permanent expenditures is not a true reform. We should have seen performance criteria, a selective bonus system – not for everyone – and many practices that work in the private sector can also be applied to the public sector. Consider this: in the public sector, where average salaries have historically been higher than in the private sector, it’s nearly impossible to get fired.”

The former prime minister concluded by reiterating, “You can’t draft a law in a month – it’s utopian, nonsensical, and unrealistic to engage in this. If you haven’t done it so far – goodbye. It’s clear that we lack the political will to reform this sector, but you shouldn’t rush a law through at the last minute, because it will likely be a poor law, creating more issues than it resolves. This law would probably have to be amended countless times in the coming years, just as we have seen in the past, when hasty legislation was enacted overnight.”