Romania Fiscal Council Says 2011-2013 Strategy Poses Significant Risks

The Council said the government’s goal to lower the budget deficit to below 3% of the gross domestic product by the 2012 EU-imposed deadline seems unrealistic and recommended additional measures to improve the tax collecting system.

„Reaching the budget deficit target for 2012 (…) seems to be conditional on an increase of the fiscal revenue by 0.2% of GDP in that year, but the (financing) sources for such an increase are not argued, which makes the growth unrealistic,” the Council said in its opinion.

According to the Council, the government should double its efforts to reduce spending by including sustained measures to increase budget revenue over the next years.

Romania’s parliament-appointed Fiscal Council is a politically independent authority whose core activity is to provide assistance to the government in drafting and implementing fiscal-budgetary policies.

The Council comprises five members appointed for a period of 9 years.