Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said that no fiscal adjustment measure envisaged by the Government will affect youth or cultural activities, stressing, however, that the state can no longer support "such a dense infrastructure."

The head of the executive was asked on Wednesday at the Victoria Governmental Palace, during the opening of the Overseas Students Forum, if the administrative reform and fiscal adjustment measures will affect the youth, education and culture sectors.

"I think there are three different things. One, we are talking about a reform in administration (...), we are talking about some fiscal adjustment measures necessary for Romania to overcome this end of the year (...) and to fit into certain financial deficits. We will try, through dialogue with the European Union, because it is a partnership between the member states and the European Commission, (...) it is normal that the things we signed two years ago that represented the priorities of the Commission, the European Union, of Romania, two years ago, have changed. And there is another approach, the one concerning the measures to fight tax evasion, Romania being one of the countries with the highest tax evasion, the lack, first and foremost, of digitisation of ANAF [National Agency for Fiscal Administration]. I ask you something else: how was it possible that Romania's biggest post-December programme, the PNRR [National Recovery and Resilience Plan], did not have a single euro allocated to the youth? How was it possible that in the PNRR the former government did not include any programme or reform for the youth? What I can assure you: we will try in this negotiation with the European Commission, which is until August 31, to include some projects for the youth and remedy this. And what I can promise you very clearly is that no fiscal adjustment measure will affect youth or cultural activity," said Marcel Ciolacu.

The Prime Minister added that it is "unacceptable" that Romania has "the most credit release authorities in the world."

"We cannot have the most credit release authorities in the world. This is unacceptable. You cannot. Every library in Romania, every theatre, smaller or bigger, every agency smaller or bigger, we are all credit release authorities. The role of a theatre director is to lead cultural activity. The role of a head of a youth agency is to lead the youth activity, not to lead a subordinate structure providing support services of the size of the National Theatre, a provincial theatre. We are mistaking things. And then we come and say: 'Sir, the director of the National Theatre must have the same salary as me, as the director of the provincial theatre.' What kind of world do we live in? (...) One thing I said very clearly. I don't want so many credit release authorities. Not everyone has to make public acquisitions. They can be done centrally at county level, by the county council. To buy a pencil you need an economic director, you need a legal head, you need a procurement specialist, it's not easy, you need to make specifications. (...) No. This is communist infrastructure. We live in different times. Those times are over. Nobody touches cultural and youth activities. I really don't think that the Romanian state can support such a dense infrastructure," Ciolacu said. AGERPRES (RO - author: Daniel Florea, editor: Mihai Simionescu; EN - author: Adina Panaitescu, editor: Cristina Zaharia)