#Romania2019.eu/PM Dancila: Romania constantly backed need to ensure higher living standard of citizens

Romania has constantly supported the need and importance of ensuring a high standard of living for citizens, on Wednesday said in Brussels the Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila, at the Tripartite Social Summit, an event that was centered on "For a stronger, united and forward-looking Europe", the website of Romania's Presidency of the EU Council reads. The meeting, also attended by representatives of the European trade unions and employers' associations, was co-chaired by the European Council's President Donald Tusk, the European Commission's President Jean-Claude Juncker, and Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila, in the context of Romania's rotating presidency of the EU Council. On Romania's behalf, also present were Labour Minister Marius Budai, European Funds Minister Rovana Plumb and Minister-Delegate for European Affairs George Ciamba. "Romania has backed constantly the need and the importance of ensuring a citizens' living standard as high as possible. In this respect, apart from the approaches at European level Romania has actively and ceaselessly supported, internally, concrete measures were taken meant to contribute to reaching the convergence target. From this outlook, a priority of the Romanian Government is given by measures meant to contribute to the increase of the citizens' living standard in concordance with the economic growth's level. One of the already implemented measures aimed at ensuring an adequate salary level in key-fields such as Health care and Education. The nationwide implemented measures have led to sizeable adjustments in the citizens' living standard. The purchase power of the citizens has grown due to increases of pensions and salaries beyond the inflation level. As an example, in two years the purchase power at national level grew by 20.6pct against the average salary," Dancila said as quoted on the Romanian Presidency at EU Council's website. President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker brought to mind, according to the source, the directives and regulations which the European Parliament and the Romanian Presidency of the EU Council have reached an agreement upon in the past weeks, among these being the provisional political agreement obtained on 19 March on the Regulation that revises the European regulations regarding the social security coordination (883 and 987) updating and protecting the citizens' rights who travel from a EU country to another and facilitate cooperation among the national authorities. In his turn, the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, hailed the 50-year anniversary of the labour force mobility. According to Romania's Presidency website, talks focused on three sub-topics: "50 years of labour mobility - making the best of free movement of workers for well-functioning labour markets; delivering investments in a deeper and fairer single market; building on the new start for social dialogue to shape the new world of work". Romanian Labour Minister Marius Budai coordinated the debate dubbed "50 years of labour mobility - making the best of free movement of workers for well-functioning labour markets". The tripartite summit in Brussels was also attended by dignitaries from Finland and Croatia, the following two states due to take over the rotating presidency of the EU Council, after Romania.AGERPRES(RO - author: Daniel Florea, editor: Andreea Rotaru; EN - author: Maria Voican, editor: Simona Iacob)