Interim Prime Minister Sorin Cimpeanu met the representatives of the National Coalition for Romania’s Modernization at Victoria Palace on Friday to discuss the 2016 draft budget.
According to a release of the executive to Agerpres, also attending the meeting were Minister of the EU Funds Marius Nica, Finance Minister Eugen Teodorovici and State Secretary at the Ministry of Education and Scientific Research, Gigel Paraschiv.
The Coalition representatives “appreciated the openness showed by the representatives of the executive in the relation with the specialist bodies, trade unions and employers’ associations and said they wanted the private investments in research to be fostered by null taxes for those who develop research parks at the universities and also requested that the pace of the increase in the absorption of the EU funds in research be maintained”, the release said.
The Coalition representatives asked for 4.5 percent of GDP to be assigned to education, 1.5 percent to defence and 0.5 percent to research.
“The priorities of the 2016 budget, from the Government’s viewpoint are the additional assignments to pensions and salaries, to health, investments, defence, education and research. Our intention in drawing up the budget is to earmark 4.5 percent of GDP to education and increase the research budget by 50 percent”, Cimpeanu said.
State Secretary Paraschiv explained that the allotment to research will go up by 33 percent in the 2016 budget plan, the allotment for the basic funding of higher education will be raised by 22 percent and the funds for scholarships will be increased by 16 percent.
EU Funds Minister Nica assured the Coalition that “all measures will be taken so as not to delay the repayment for the development projects on EU funds, with meetings with all the intermediate bodies involved in their management being organised in this respect”.
