Head of small businesses' umbrella organisation: 2019 state budget fragile, built on chimerical commitment appropriations

This year's state budget is fragile and unbalanced, since it relies on commitment appropriations which are actually chimeras and mean rolling over payments from one year to another, Florin Jianu, president of Romania's National Council of Small and Medium-sized Private Enterprises (CNIPMMR) told a press conference.

"The budget is fragile and unbalanced. It is built on commitment appropriations, just like the year before. This means that it does not start from realistic premises, as is customary for entrepreneurs to plan their budgets. The state budget is built on chimeras, specifically on these commitment appropriations, which means rolling over payments from one year to the next, just as in 2018 we moved them to 2019. And we simply don't look at who has to foot the bill in the end," Jianu said.

According to him, the lengthy budget delay is a very serious issue, as investments are also put off.

"The European Union and many EU countries build their budget on surplus, while Romania goes directly for deficit. We have looked at the budgets of other countries, many build their budget on surplus and they also had surplus last year. For instance Sweden, Germany, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Croatia, Greece. Even Bulgaria, which has a lower tax rate, but has not changed the fiscal code for 12 years, has a budget surplus," Jianu said.

He emphasized that there are two major goals set forth in the EU budget, namely economic growth and job creation, with 13 pct of the budget directed thereto.

"At the same time, public investments amount to 46 billion lei, the document mentions 136 investment projects, but we do not know which projects are being started and completed, it's not written anywhere. There are several ministries, like the Ministry of Education for instance, which have no investment project," Jianu said.

The SMEs representative also mentioned that the state budget includes contradictory elements, as in the case of development fund where - in some positions it refers to grants to administrative-territorial units, while in others about loans, which Jianu considers to prove a heedless approach. AGERPRES (RO - editor: Florentina Cernat, editor: Nicoleta Gherasi; EN - author: Simona Klodnischi, editor: Simona Iacob)