Prime minister Marcel Ciolacu, chairman of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), on Thursday said, with regard to the 10% salary increase approved by the Government, that this is all that is possible at the moment, pointing out that "the macroeconomic balance is very fragile."

He was asked by private broadcaster Romania TV about the "strike attempt" at the Government by the employees in the Executive's working apparatus on the issue of salaries.

"There were two years of right-wing government, before the PSD came to power, when no pension increase was given, the law with the inflation index was not observed, only once I think they increased by about 40 RON. (...) Loans were contracted that led us to a deficit of 9.4%, they borrowed 100 RON, invested 50 RON, 50 RON went to consumption. Nothing happened. When we came to power, apart from the pandemic crisis, the energy crisis (...) nothing happened. We came to government, the law on pensions was respected, a one-off was given, salaries were increased for public employees," Ciolacu said.

He explained that there had also been a drop in the standard of living, given the high inflation rate, but the situation changed after the PSD came to power.

"Of course the standard of living has fallen if we had an average inflation of 13.8. I took double-digit inflation. (...) We came in, at the beginning of the year, we increased the budget by 5%, because that's how we built the budget. (...) Last year we ended the deficit, out of 100 RON borrowed, 95 RON went on investments, so we jumped from 50 RON, as the right-wing governments did, to 95 RON. This year, after one quarter, for every 100 RON borrowed we are investing 120 RON, that's the rhythm. The Romanian state no longer makes loans to support consumption, this is the first year in Romania's history," Ciolacu said.

He also explained how the decision to increase the salaries of certain categories of civil servants by 10% was reached.

"And now, we have come up with 5%, after a discussion with the Minister of Finance, we have decided on an envelope of 1.2 billion RON, with revenues higher by almost 25 billion RON in the first months compared to last year, in the first quarter. We told ourselves that we can afford it, so that we can still cover inflation and still have an increase in the standard of living, even though we have reached an inflation with only one figure - it is 5.8 I think, and it is decreasing," Ciolacu said.

Romania must maintain this pace of investment in motorways, hospitals and education, he added.

Asked how he will proceed in the face of the complaints expressed by the employees of the Government's working apparatus, the prime minister stressed that, at this moment, the Executive can only do so much regarding salary increases. AGERPRES (RO - author: Daniel Florea, editor: Georgiana Tanasescu; EN - author: Simona Iacob, editor: Cristina Zaharia)