FinMin Citu: Budget must be approved by next government, as required by law

The 2021 budget must be approved by the next government, but at this moment the Ministry of Public Finance has started a spending review of the authorizing officers to see exactly what the implementation is, the Minister of Public Finance (MFP) Florin Citu said on Wednesday, asked if he will increase or freeze the salaries of the public employees in the future budget. "We will present you with the next year budget at the right time. You know very well that the budget must be approved by the next government. However, at this time we have started a spending review of the authorizing officers to see exactly what the implementation is. Of course everything will be presented by the government that will be after the elections of December 6. You know very well that this is the legislation in force," Florin Citu told a press conference. He also noted that budgets are "built on the existing legislation." "I look at the budget execution every month and by the look of things now, there will be a need for budget revision by the end of the year," Florin Citu said. In August 2020, the head of Finance was saying that he would prefer to come with a budget for next year as soon as possible and not wait until December. "We have prepared the financing for this whole year. We know exactly every chapter of the budget. I would like not to wait for the end of the year, I would like to come up with a budget to present as soon as possible for next year. (...) I would prefer to come with a budget for next year as soon as possible, not to wait until December again, to work fast," the Minister of Finance told private broadcaster at Digi24 on August 19. He stressed at the time that regular meetings with President Klaus Iohannis were taking place regularly, on European funds, on the package received from the European Commission. "Discussion are very practical at all these meetings, there are questions that we have to ask the Commission to make sure that when the plan is drawn up and approved it will not be a project that we have forgotten and then if we want to introduce it not to be able to because we didn't ask for the exact conditions", said Citu.AGERPRES(RO - author: George Banciulea, editor: Andreea Marinescu; EN - author: Simona Iacob, editor: Maria Voican)