When should the budget draft reach Parliament? Kelemen Hunor’s response

UDMR leader Kelemen Hunor stated on Tuesday, on RFI, that the budget draft should reach Parliament for debate and vote next week.

„Next week, the budget should reach Parliament for debate and vote. These days, there are also technical discussions between the deputy prime minister and ministers, the Ministry of Finance and others. And there will also be political discussions in the coalition,” Kelemen Hunor stated on RFI.

He emphasized that there are several points on which the coalition has not reached a consensus.

„There are a few issues where we have not managed to close the discussions at this point: Investments also maintain the Romanian economy and Romanian companies. We must recognize that if public investments in certain areas stop, Romanian companies go bankrupt, not multinationals. We need co-financing for the PNRR, for European funds, where there are very large amounts in grants and loans. And there is a huge effort there and we have not managed to close the social package, because there is again an issue that needs to be discussed, like we do with pensioners. Our proposal was as follows: to have a one-off payment for pensioners,” declared Kelemen Hunor, adding that „this step must be taken, this aid must be given to pensioners on a mandatory basis.”

The UDMR leader also emphasized that the milestones in the PNRR that may not be met this year and that will mean lost money for Romania will also be problematic.

Asked which milestone will not be reached, the UDMR leader replied: „Of course, where I see a problem is with that milestone through which Romania has undertaken to manufacture solar panels and hydrogen fuel. So those two milestones will certainly not be reached. (…) I don’t want to advance amounts, but we are talking about several hundred million euros, if I’m not mistaken. But there are other issues that need to be closed during this period and we are talking about those milestones that have not been closed so far”, concluded Kelemen Hunor to RFI.