The Mayor of the Capital, Nicusor Dan, said on Thursday evening that Bucharest’s budget for 2025, approved by the General Council, is „minimal”, providing „very little money” for investments.
„It is a minimal budget, which ensures the functioning of services and which has very little money for investments. It is an emergency budget, which ensures the functioning of services and which does not leave too much money for investments. (…) We will continue district heating, because there we have European money plus the loan that we signed with the EIB, on the European funds side. We have money from the Ministry of Development, on the other projects. So, district heating will continue. We are waiting for the release of the guide for the Regional Operational Program, so that we can build the new trams and tram lines for which we already have the contracts signed. We have a prior agreement with the EIB and immediately after that we will also go out on the market to borrow. These are the relevant investments that we will make in 2025”, said Nicusor Dan, in a statement given to the press at the PMB headquarters.
He explained the inclusion of 555 million RON in revenues by the fact that, in the meantime, the favorable opinion of the Local Loan Authorization Commission was granted.
„It’s about a quarter of the loan that Mayor Videanu made in 2005. In the meantime, we had the approval of the CAÎL, so there is some definite money that we will have. And then there were 555 million RON that we were able to put as expenses in the local budget,” said the mayor.
Nicusor Dan drew attention to the fact that, in the course of two years, the capital’s budget was reduced by 30%. He criticized the „unfair” distribution of amounts between the capital’s city hall and the district mayoralties.
„From the income taxes of Bucharest residents, in 2023 we had 6 billion. In 2024 we had 5 billion. In 2025 we have 4 billion. There can be nothing happy when you lose 30% of the budget in two years, in conditions in which this has been the main problem of Bucharest for years, more precisely since the 2000s: the unfair distribution between the City Hall of the Capital and the sector city halls, in conditions in which the City Hall of the Capital also has the infrastructure and hospitals and theaters and public transport and district heating and many others,” said the mayor.
AGERPRES
