Prime Minister Ludovic Orban stated, on Wednesday, in Galati, that the Government will increase the pensions "by as much as possible, depending on the economic realities," on the basis of "serious analysis, data and prognoses".

"We work on analyses, on data, on serious prognoses, on impact studies and so forth. Firstly, the analysis on the economic and budget status for the first six months has to be completed, according to the Law of fiscal-budgetary responsibility. Secondly, a prognosis needs to be done on the medium and long term regarding the evolution of the Romanian economy which has to be correlated with the perspectives for evolution of the European economy in its entirety, because Romania is indissolubly tied to Europe's economy, 80 pct of our commercial trade is with states in the European Union. (...) Depending on the data, we will know clearly what the decision will be. We will increase pensions, but we will increase them by as much as possible from the point of view of the economic reality and, especially, we will increase pensions so that we have the guarantee that pensions can be paid," said Ludovic Orban.

The Prime Minister added that "pensions can't be paid only until the elections, as the PSD [Social Democratic Party] wants," but there needs to be a guarantee that "they can be paid in 2021 and 2022 and in 2023 and in 2024."

"Without affecting the budgets necessary for investment projects, without affecting the financial resources necessary for economic development, for the development of transport, energy, health, education infrastructures, because Romania needs major investments in all these domains as it needs air and without this investment action we risk affecting Romania's perspectives for development in the long term. Thus, we will increase the pensions, by how much we will announce when we have the necessary data," Orban concluded.AGERPRES(RO - author: Daniel Florea, editor: Mihai Simionescu; EN - author: Razvan-Adrian Pandea, editor: Maria Voican)