Victor Ponta: "The draft law also contains measures that cannot be implemented"

Victor Ponta, honorary advisor to Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu for international economic relations, said, yesterday, at the beginning of the board meeting of the National Council of Small and Medium Private Enterprises in Romania that he fears that some measures included in the draft law posted on the website of the Ministry of Finance will not be able to be implemented.

Mr. Ponta said: "My biggest fear is that, after this law is passed, there will be 100 things that cannot be put into practice, because the same people from my time (ed. - when he was prime minister in the period 2012-2015) write the legal texts. Therefore, the business environment must identify these texts that can block the implementation, i.e. the things put in the pen and which cannot be implemented. (...) In 2012 when I became prime minister, the first people who entered my office were those from Finance who came to tell me that we must reduce the deficit below 3% and brought me solutions from the which they have now proposed to Minister Marcel Boloş. (...) I also made mistakes, but I learned the basic words: stability and predictability; it's what the business environment wants. It is very complicated to keep a country or a company without stability and predictability".

He showed that the current budget situation was generated by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, but also by the decisions of former governments.

Victor Ponta added: "Unfortunately, since 2019 we have had 5 premierships, we have had the pandemic, and now we have the war in Ukraine which affects not only farmers, but also the infrastructure of our country; all this led to the increase of the debt. If I were in the place of Minister Marcel Boloş, I would not know how to pay the interest for next year. I won't give you the numbers because they are very high. I wouldn't want to be in Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu's place either, because some people kept eating, consuming, and now he came to pay the bill. I look at the numbers and I don't understand how the Romanian state collects more than last year, but the deficit is increasing, due to public spending. I don't understand why the Romanian state is spending more this year than in 2022. No one has been able to explain this to the prime minister".

The Honorary Advisor to the Head of Government expressed his hope that this difficult moment will be shared by everyone, not just SMEs and micro-enterprises. He noted that just as they made historic profits during the pandemic and after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, companies in the energy and banking sectors and multinational firms must pay historic taxes until the current period passes, because no one intends to sanction those who make profits large, but only social solidarity is sought in certain moments of crisis.