Minister of Labour: pension and salary indexation, "pie in the sky"

Romanian dissatisfaction with incomes has been brought back into the spotlight following statements from two key officials. Caretaker Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan stated that austerity measures must be maintained into next year, whilst Acting Labour Minister Dragoș Pîslaru called into question the possibility of a real indexation of pensions and salaries.

What the Labour Minister said

Dragoș Pîslaru stated: "The issue is not whether we can index pensions or salaries — the issue is how you build a budget that allows for such things. Looking at some recently launched political programmes, it is quite amusing to notice that we are once again being promised the moon, with no indication of the funding source or how these measures would actually be built into the budget."

According to the article, some experts nevertheless believe that an indexation of incomes should take place next year.

Economic context

Against the backdrop of these statements, a third credit rating agency is set to assess Romania's situation. This review comes after the other two major international rating agencies published their decisions over the summer, both maintaining the country's rating at the lowest investment-grade level.