'The most important mission of the Government and Parliament is to end malpractice in the governance. Many received too much in 2007-2008 and no they are compelled to give it back. The Romanian state cannot affort to pay incompetent public servants or fake sick people', President Traian Basescu declared in a speech he addresses to the Parliament.

Here are some of his main declarations:

  • Romania cannot take up loans just for consumption 

  • we need social solidarity more than ever 

  • in 2004 Romania had in social care over 6 million citizens and in 2009 it had 13.9 million 

  • our fight with the crisis was accompanied by a crisis of trust, encouraged and continued. The negative public discourse compels me to remind everyone that Romania is a European country, democratic, with a huge development potential but we have a difficult road to regain trust and a political sacrifice is called for 

  • in crisis, one cannot govern thinking of the following elections

  • trust we come when the government will have more coherence in explaining its polciies and when the citizen will stop paying for the inefficiency of the administrative apparatus 

  • Romania will have a deficit of 6.8% of GDP in 2010 

  • this spring Romania set a memorandum with the IMF, EC and World Bank to cut costs and cut salaries by 25% 

  • our objective is to have an elite well paid in the administration but this means the selection criteria should be made on performance criteria

  • the education and health systems are not sufficiently funded but we need to ensure that current resources are used correctly and allocated objectively. 

  • we need a law to set the correct salary rapports between difference categories of public servants

  • we need to eliminate any social aid that encourages those who can work not to 

  • the pensions budget deficit increases each year 

  • in 2011 we will sign a new agreement with the IMF 

  • loans are a solution only if they are directed to investments not consumption 

UPDATE 3:11 PM The speech of the President is delayed for several minutes. The Parliament reunited at 3:10 PM. PSD leader Victor Ponta announced that the Social Democrats do not feel compelled to assist to the meeting since the President cannot ensure a normal functioning of the Parliament. The Social Democrats left the session, after Ponta's intervention.

'Interestingly, I cannot find the constitutional article reading that the President orders the Romanian Parliament. I am the same correct President in my relations with the state's institutions and I cannot mingle in a Parliamentary debate. As far as I know, only the Constitutional Court can mediate a debate on constitutional matters', President Basescu declared at arrival.

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