It wouldn’t be wise for Romania to come under the incidence of the Euro Plus Pact from January 1, 2013 onward, Professor Daniel Daianu said.
The Euro Plus Pact is but an instrument, part of a very broad process of consolidation of the economic governance at European level, Minister of Foreign Affairs Leonard Orban said yesterday, while at the Conference: “Launch of the Strategy and Policy Studies – SPOS 2011, a research program carried out during May-December 2011 that involved 14 experts, researchers and academe, Money.ro reports. “We now have the Fiscal Treaty which stirred a great deal of discussion given that Romania, which is a signatory country, will have to decide when will start applying the provisions of the document concerned,” Orban said.In his turn, Prof. Daniel Daianu, an attendee to the event, mentioned that it wouldn’t be wise for Romania to come under the incidence of the Euro Plus Pact from Jan 1, 2013 onward, and the country should show strictness, and try to discipline itself budgetary speaking and have room for manoeuvre, the economist explained. “For a country such as Romania it is dangerous to think of a level of public debt of 60 pc GDP. This is a target for high levels that and must go down. It would be stupid for us to set out to reach 60 pc. In this respect, we are on the same wavelength with our fellow economists at the National Bank of Romania and others who say that, if we get into 40 pc, we enter a very dangerous territory where we can get unsettled by the development of such variables as exchange rate, the level of the interest rat, a negative externality that is,” Daianu explained, according to whom the way the Europact is built resembles a straightjacket.The event was also an opportunity for the launch of four documents, namely the “Joint Economic Policy Reform in the context of the budgetary perspective post-2013”, “Adopting the Euro Plus Pact: implications on Romania’s fiscal policy”, “The European Semester and ensuring sustainable economic growth by reforming public finances. Lessons for Romania from the perspective of sustainability of public finances” and “Analysis of the social policy development in the EU over the past three years – additional /private pensions and the impact of ageing population”.Minister Orban further mentioned that the slightest attempt to embezzle community funds cannot be condoned. Orban’s reaction follows prosecutors’ dismantling of an organized group specialized in embezzlement of EU funds. Six suspects were held yesterday and are being investigated by the Fraud Investigation Department of the Bucharest district 6 Police. They created projects financed by EU funds in the area of education and labour only to then enter contracts with front companies, incurring an estimated damage of EUR 700,000.
Romania must diversify their exports
Also, the minister touched on the export issue saying that Romanian exporters must diversify exports in order to maintain an up-trend. “The world is a big place, there are very many areas of interest, opportunity areas and they must be used,” Leonard Orban said, who, asked whether he is afraid of a shock on the European market, expressed his hope this would not be the case.
