The calculation of the 2025 budget was made based on the taxes and fees in force and the primary objective is to complete it without changes in this regard, by reducing expenses, finance minister Tanczos Barna said on Tuesday.
„The measures were taken by the Government in December and we calculated the budget based on the taxes and fees that are in force today and we have no intention of modifying these taxes and fees. We are reducing expenses and we are within the 7% deficit,” the minister said during the general debates on the 2025 budget, in the parliamentary committees convened for the budget, finance and banks.
In presenting the draft budget, he stressed that Romania’s economy is increasingly winning competitions in relation to other European Union member states in this region, in Central and Eastern Europe, it is a healthy, robust economy and with indicators „that give us reason to be proud,” such as GDP per capita, constant economic growth, labour productivity or budget investments.
On the other hand, Tanczos Barna specified, in terms of budgetary construction, Romania is a country with a budget that has a deficit outside the parameters established at the European Union level, a member state that has a seven-year plan to recover the deficit from 8.6% to 3%, an economy that has borrowed to finance this budget deficit.
„The economic growth forecast by the Forecasting Institute is 2.5% for 2025. The gross domestic product is growing and is estimated at 1,912 billion RON, the average net monthly salary is continuously increasing, also due to government interventions to increase the minimum wage, and a pleasing thing is also the increase in the number of employees at national level and the gradual decrease in unemployment. Inflation is forecast at 3.8% December by December, 4.4% annual average. Based on these macroeconomic figures, on these macroeconomic indicators, we proposed a budget that, indeed, has as its first target the 7% deficit, on the one hand, due to the cut in expenses in many chapters and due to the reforms that are implemented during the year by each institution separately, by slashing down personnel expenses overall by 5%, and operating expenses overall by 5%, except for a few institutions and we are talking here about the Ministry of Education, Health, Defence and the Ministry of the Interior,” explained the Minister of Finance.
He reiterated that an increase in revenues is forecast to cover the annualized increases in last year’s expenses, namely the increases in salaries and pensions, which have an impact on 2025 through the annualization of these expenses. At the same time, investments will increase, reaching over 150 billion in 2025, a record amount, also due to the fact that this is the annual peak of investments in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which overlap with investments from structural funds, namely investments financed from the national budget, from national funds.
Tanczos Barna signaled, on the other hand, that the trade balance is still a very big challenge for Romania, because exports, compared to imports, have lost ground.
Regarding the main indicators of the 2025 budget, the total consolidated general budget revenues on cash basis are 34.9% of GDP, the consolidated general budget expenditures are 41.9%, the deficit is 7%, the ESA balance, and the structural balance is 6.4%. An increase compared to 2024 is estimated in total revenues from 574 billion to 667 billion RON and in revenues from the economy from 531 to 579 billion RON. Expenditures reach 802 billion in 2025. VAT revenues are estimated to increase to 7.1% of GDP, excise revenues remain at a constant level of 2.5% of GDP. Property taxes and fees will be at a similar level to 2024 and here, Tanczos Barna mentioned, „a very settled discussion will be needed, to find solutions for these revenues to bring a greater contribution to the budget of the territorial administrative units.
AGERPRES
