Romania: fresh start with the new government?
Romania's new, pro-European government was confirmed by the country's parliament on Monday. In his inaugural speech, Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan announced a harsh austerity programme to tackle the budget deficit, which is the highest within the EU. A reduction in public sector staffing, caps on civil servants' salaries and the rollback of privileges are the agenda, as well as increased investments in healthcare and education.
Crisis as opportunity
Sometimes a society has to be forced to make good choices, says republica.ro:
“In normal times, painful reforms are generally avoided, postponed or fail politically. Yet the current crisis calls for a reform of the tax system, strategic investments and a revision of the way the state functions. This is essentially what is meant by the term 'useful crisis': it is not a time of pointless suffering, but an opportunity in which difficult decisions become unavoidable and therefore also possible to make.”
Pushback expected
There will be resistance from several camps, centrulpolitic.ro fears:
“From the vociferous 'sovereigntist' opposition, which is anti-West or even pro-Russian, but which has no solution of its own. It will make an apocalypse out of every tiny mistake made by the government and garnish it with lies in order to fuel a permanent state of confusion, fear, frustration and anger among the population and incite anti-system protests. ... The new government will also get pushback from the privileged employees in the institutions, who will be impacted by the reforms. And there of lots of them. These people have any number of politicians on their side, unofficially of course, thanks to whom they secured their positions of privilege in the first place.”
Fight corruption instead of taxing poetry
For Observator Cultural, increasing the VAT on books and the press from 5 to 19 percent would be a symbolic and utterly destructive policy:
“Countless regional and national newspapers have disappeared over the past decade. The growing number of online readers has not led to a sustainable economic model. ... Increasing VAT will not solve the state's revenue crisis. Instead, already struggling media outlets will end up in an even worse position. ... Instead of fighting major fraud cases, digitising the tax system or boosting the efficiency of the tax authorities, the government is opting to raise taxes in areas that barely generate any money for the state. ... How is jacking up the taxes on books of poetry or magazines supposed to reduce the state deficit?”