The government meeting to approve the 2024 budget, which was originally scheduled for 12:00, has been postponed by at least an hour as the conclusions of the Economic and Social Council (CES) are awaited, which will also start at 12:00, government sources said in Thursday. The Concordia Confederation has already announced that it will negatively approve the 2024 budget and fiscal measures at CES.

• 17:06 The meeting of the Government takes place late, after being postponed for more than 5 hours. The CEC has published the first negative conclusions regarding the draft law on the social insurance budget and the draft law on approving the limit sizes of individual indicators specified in the fiscal and budgetary framework for 2024.
• “With insufficient time allocated (less than 24 hours) for the analysis of complex documents with a total number of more than 1,200 pages, the impact of the draft regulatory act could not be properly assessed.
• Preliminary analysis shows excessive and unwarranted optimism about the level of income and the significant impact on numerous industries, employers, workers and representatives of the non-governmental environment. warns CES.
• 16:20 Sources: The Cabinet meeting may start at 5:00 p.m., but a decision is still awaited.
  
• 15:48 The CES plenary session unanimously voted for a negative conclusion on the Trenuleț Resolution, with 34 votes against. The CES session is over.
  
• 15:17 The plenary session of the Central Committee of Economic and Social Affairs gave a negative conclusion on the draft law on the state budget for 2024: 32 votes, 28 against, 4 with comments. Most ESC members blamed insufficient time for analysis.
• “This is more of a political budget to give a chance to the next election year. We are concerned that this consultation is taking place 24 hours after over 1,000 documents were sent by post. Why were consultations not held when drawing up the budget? Instead of prevention, you will have to deal with treatment. I hope that the conclusion of the CES will be unfavorable, because the dialogue is not real, but only formal. We offer an unfavorable conclusion from the Confederation of Concordia.” said Cătălin Niță, Concordia Confederation.
• 13:40 Bohdan Simion, president of CES: “Currently, the interdepartmental approval of the draft budget for 2024 has been completed and it will be possible to approve it from 2:00 p.m. Previously, there were no approvals from the Ministries of Agriculture, Transport and Justice.
  The state social insurance budget for 2024 received an unfavorable conclusion due to the fact that we did not have time to conduct an analysis.”
  
• Sources: The KES meeting was suspended at 2:00 p.m. due to the fact that the ministries did not provide all the necessary conclusions for the 2024 budget.

The CES findings are binding but advisory only, and there are already signs of private sector discontent over the 2024 budget.

Concordia employers’ confederation has already announced that it will oppose the budget in the Economic and Social Council (CES).

• “It would be irresponsible to act otherwise. There were no consultations and discussions with any industry, the social dialogue is again a form that marks a legal requirement and nothing more, and from the first analysis we see an excessive and unjustified optimism about the level of income,” he explained to Radu Burnete, the executive director of the Confederation Concordia employers.

ANAF plans to raise 30 billion more next year, although this year it is 12 billion less than proposed, says Bernete.

• “The government expects to receive more than 60 billion lei from European funds and PNRR, although it will reach slightly less than 29 billion of the proposed 55 billion in 2023. The additional 12 billion that the Government believes it will receive in addition from CASS after the base expansion is also a question mark due to the lack of justification from which it is possible to understand how this figure was arrived at, says the chief executive of the Confederation of Employers. .

We remind you that the draft budget for 2024 was published on Wednesday, built on a budget deficit of 86.6 billion lei or 5% of GDP, with a projected economic growth of 3.4%, which is 2.0% higher than in 2023 year

Revenues of the general consolidated budget in 2024 will amount to 586 billion lei, i.e. an increase of 13%, and expenses are estimated at 672.8 billion lei (an increase of 9%).

• “This year’s experience has shown us that although the government has the political authority to propose any budget, if it is built on unrealistic revenue estimates and projections, the pots quickly break in the heads of good taxpayers. They will again be called upon to pay a deficit larger than estimated, despite promises that there will be no tax increase in 2024,” Radu Burnete added.

According to him, some of the fiscal and budgetary measures surrounding this budget also raise questions: the Government wants to narrow again the scope of deductions from sponsorship, although this system has created many social benefits at very low costs; the transition fund, although fed by excessive taxation of energy companies, is empty in the draft budget; restrictions for Rabla are significantly reduced, which prevents the implementation of these programs, although money from the Environmental Fund cannot be redistributed to other budget areas; sales tax remains with significant uncertainty and we also see tax rulings that will be retroactive. Penalties for evasion are increasing, which is very good in itself, but in the absence of ANAF reform and digitization, we fear that this institution will become more oppressive even with good taxpayers and not with evaders.

Social dialogue and consultation would lead to a more realistic budget that businesses and society would not fear, but that cannot be done in the 24 hours we have. The government continues to not take seriously those who ultimately create the welfare of Romania, workers and employers. We take our role seriously and will publish our own analyzes and opinions in the next period, even if the measures and the budget have already been adopted,” concludes the executive director of the Confederation of Concordia Employers.

Official budget data for 2024. Who wins and who loses

According to the Ministry of Finance’s budget forecasts for next year, Romania will have a deficit of 5% in 2024, or rather a hole in public finances of 86.6 billion lei.

The Ministry of Finance has released the draft budget for next year, together with the fiscal and budgetary strategy and the law on the limits.

The marginal amount of personnel costs of the general consolidated budget, expressed as a percentage of the gross domestic product, is 8.5% in 2024, and the maximum level of public debt according to the European Union methodology at the end of 2024 is 49.8% of the gross domestic product.

• See the bill here
• See the budget summary for 202 here4, about the main credit specialists
• READ THE DRAFT LAW ON THE BUDGET HERE

The expected growth of the economy for the next year is 3.4%, and inflation is 6%. In addition, the average monthly net salary based on the budget is 4,733 lei.

The gross domestic product is estimated at 1,733 billion lei in current prices, and the budget deficit is 5% of GDP, taking into account revenues of more than 586 billion lei and expenditures of 673 billion lei. The share of total expenditures in GDP is estimated at 38.8%, and revenues at 33.8% of GDP.

A 5% increase in salaries for state employees.

In 2024, all state employees will receive a 5% salary increase, except for teachers, who will receive a 20% salary increase in two installments – January 1 and June 1.

Also, in the budgetary sphere, the filling of vacant positions by competition is suspended, additional work will be compensated on weekends, institutions and state authorities do not reward their employees, but the amount of monetary remuneration, accordingly, the value allowance for food rights, the annual financial cost of equipment rules and the financial cost of equipment rights are kept in payment at the level provided for the month of December 2023.

Who receives more money per year (budget loans)

Ministry of Internal Affairs – 27,987,183 thousand lei – +0.62%

Ministry of Finance – 65,887,452 thousand lei – +2.1%

Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure – 30,001,915 thousand lei – +28.59%

Ministry of National Defense – 39,544,618 thousand lei – +25.9%

Ministry of Education – 6162162 thousand lei – +50.07%

Ministry of Culture – 1,483,551 thousand lei – +16.02%

Ministry of Foreign Affairs – 1,341,528 thousand lei – +3.9%

Ministry of Development – 13,208,743 thousand lei – +35.01%

Ministry of Agriculture – 25,195,956 thousand lei – +9%

Ministry of Research – 3,166,764 thousand lei – +27.35%

Ministry of Environment – 3,144,156 thousand lei – +10.77%

Ministry of Family – 363,174 thousand lei – 41.41%

Ministry of Labor – 75,941,830 thousand lei – 13.%

SRI – 3,959,208 thousand lei – +2%

STS – 1,479,642 thousand lei – +28%

Presidential Administration – 109,699 thousand lei – +0.9%

Senate – 357,765 thousand lei – +8.99%

Chamber of Deputies – 663,055 thousand lei – +6.7%

Who receives less money per year (budget loans)

Ministry of Justice – 3,036,56 thousand lei – -2.2%

Ministry of Economy – 7,017,626 thousand lei – -42.25%

Ministry of European Investments and Projects – 8,667,443 thousand lei – -38.47%

Ministry of Health – 19,405,054 thousand lei – -18.46%

Ministry of Energy – 7,017,626 thousand lei – -42.25%

SPP – 356,869 thousand lei – -29.5%

SGG – 4,738,718 thousand lei – -2.46%.