Leaders of the ruling coalition on Wednesday convened at the Government House for a new round of discussions on the reform of the local administration.

At the meeting, along with Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, national leader of the National Liberal Party (PNL), were also Deputy Prime Minister Marian Neacsu and Mayor of Craiova, Lia Olguta Vasilescu of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), Dominic Fritz of the Save Romania Union (USR), Kelemen Hunor, Cseke Attila, both of the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR), and Varujan Pambuccian, leader of the national minorities group in Parliament.

On the matter at hand, Minister of Development Cseke Attila said that two main scenarios are being discussed: one that aims at a reduction in the positions and another that involves a mix of spending cuts, goods and services and personnel.

„The scenarios are those presented by you, a scenario in which we refer to a reduction of personnel on occupied positions, a scenario referring to the reduction of personnel expenses or goods and services, and a possibility to combine them in one way or another to find a compromise,” Cseke told Digi 24 private broadcaster on Wednesday.

He explained that the mechanism suggested by the ministry does not bring significant staff reductions where „the mayor was a good householder and made his staff structure more efficient.”

„Which means that for over 700 territorial administrative units (UAT), practically, there would be no effective reduction in personnel, and for the remaining 2,400-2,500 UATs, there is also differentiated. Where the organisational chart is full, it is occupied, all positions are occupied, obviously it is a more significant reduction in personnel. Because a 30% is applied, which, in the end, reaches a 10% reduction in occupied positions,” said Cseke.

He added that he was dissatisfied with the fact that, even in the coalition, much of the discussion on the reform of the local administration focuses on „this number of job cuts.”

„While this package has 50 pages with a lot of good things for local administrations and putting some financial mechanisms in order, it helps local authorities,” explained Cseke.

He pointed out that, if no agreement is reached in the coalition on the reform of the local administration in the coming weeks, that would also damage the message that the coalition gives.

„We believe, I am talking about the UDMR and the Ministry of Development, that the first option must be regulated, it must be regulated urgently, immediately after this and the reduction to the central administration, because there too we have a bureaucracy. Of course, we do not have a system, let’s say, so well legislated as in the local administration – there the 20% reduction is provided for in the government agenda, in at least two places – for the central administration we do not have a percentage in the government agenda,” Cseke said. AGERPRES