Finance Minister Marcel Bolosh says the money contributed by Romania’s more than 8 million workers to private pension funds “stays there,” News.ro reports.

On Antena 3, he called the “sister of madness” an attempt to introduce an amendment that would allow the nationalization of this level of pensions, which has accumulated funds exceeding 100 billion lei.

“I don’t know the details of the whole story and I don’t want to know them, because I don’t think that such a measure can be discussed and can be implemented,” says Bolosh, admitting that he knows that this topic was discussed in the government coalition, but this idea was rejected.

Marcel Bolosh explained that on Tuesday he learned about the introduction of the amendment aimed at level II pensions, the amendment that caused a scandal.

“Thinking about the duties and responsibilities of the Secretary of State, I don’t know how he finally introduced the amendment. I do not think that, being the text that has reached the form that seems to be necessary to make changes, I do not believe in such actions, it is the sister of madness, and those net assets that belong to the people remain, in private pension funds, in these private pension funds have 103 billion lei, and we are talking about the number of 8.3 million people. (…)

I admit, this amendment did not go through the official path, so it practically did not reach the discussion in the committees, I do not know that it reached the parliamentary committees and, I admit, I do not know these parliamentary procedures,” said Marcel Bolosh on Tuesday evening on Antena 3.

Finance Minister Marcel Bolosh called the secretary of state, who would introduce the amendment, “a very good professional that the ministry has” and said he knew her to be “a professional of good will and with very correct moral values”. .

“I don’t know the details of the whole story and I don’t want to know them, because I don’t think that such a measure can be discussed and implemented. Here we are discussing net assets of more than 100 billion lei, this has never been discussed,” Bolosh added.

Asked if he had discussed the amendment with the Secretary of State, the minister replied: “It’s a shame to ask these things related to individual actions.”

“I cannot fire her, this is an attribute of the prime minister. If that was what we discussed and what – I will admit to you that this issue was discussed about a month ago in the government coalition, and it also came to the approach, so to speak, of abandoning the idea, and I thought that things – they reassured us that we were on the right track. The measures that were discussed were various, but this does not mean that some discussed nonsense, or inflation of ideas, as I often told them, at the working table of the coalition, was carried out,” the minister also noted.

Bolos also said that “we should not feed the mill” of the discussion on this topic “for the good of Romania”, referring in this context to relations with international financial institutions.

“This is an issue that is related to the actions of the Secretary of State on her own responsibility and which is not the official position of the Ministry of Finance, I can only say that we should not give it the necessary attention due to the argument that we first need to think about the financial interests of Romania. The international financial institutions are looking at the discussions we are having, and I don’t believe… if this was an amendment that would take legal form and go through the parliamentary procedure… Have you heard the Minister of Finance say something like that? ” concluded Marcel Bolosh.

In addition, answering the question of who proposed in the coalition discussions the idea of ​​introducing a provision that would allow for the nationalization of the II level of pensions, Bolosh refused to name names, saying only: “Let’s say that he is not part of the political structures, but I prefer not to elaborate this topic precisely out of respect for the country and the country’s interests.” (News.ro.)