He made the statement at the government meeting that was to pass the new Emergency Government Ordinance.
“This is not an ‘austerity’ or ‘poverty’ ordinance, as they say on TV. Austerity was when salaries were cut 25%, when the VAT went up from 19% to 24% or when hundreds of schools and hospitals closed,” Ciolacu said.
The austerity ordinance of Ciolacu 2 Government published on Sunday as a bill by the Finance Ministry, included among others, a tax on special construction of up to 1.5% of the respective structures’ value. Such a tax is nothing new, it was first introduced by the Ponta 1 Government in 2014 and then dropped in 2017, due to its negative impact on economy and competitiveness of companies.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)