Anti-crisis measures adopted, included in Romania's budget, premier tells lawmakers

Boc mentioned the budget gap was of 5.2 percent last year despite an economic growth of 7.8 percent (7.1 percent according to the National Statistics Institute), accusing the former Cabinet of excessive spending which caused the largest hole in the budget in the past 19 years.

The current government inked 141 financing contracts with European funds in two months, while the former government signed 177 financing contracts between June 2007 and the end of 2008, the premier said, pointing to the need of drawing European money.

The premier also said the government led by former Liberal premier Calin Popescu Tariceanu sponged only 6 percent (176 million euros) of the 3 billion euros that Romania could have received from the European Union in the past two years.  

Also the previous government paid hundreds of millions of euros for not using the 4.8 billion euros borrowed from the European Investment Bank (EIB), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB), Boc added. 

Last week the government was working on a “complete package” to provide both state aid and governmental guarantees by the European norms to the large investments in Romania affected by the economic downturn, the premier announced. This is part of the anti-crisis measures.

However, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warns that Bulgaria will face more easily the downturn helped by last year’s budget surplus and by the fixed exchange rate, the representative for Romania and Bulgaria Juan Fernandez Ansola told Bulgarian weekly Kapital.