Daniel Apostol, FPE: “The government must approach balancing public finances with maximum responsibility”

“I believe that the most important thing that Romania has achieved since the Revolution is the fact that it joined the European Union and that, through many efforts and sacrifices, it is trying to build a free market.

Unlike the Romanian state, which is the most defective administrator of the economy in all these 35 years, in the private sector we have examples of economic management, of economic performance.

Personally, the first priority that I see at the beginning of this year is balancing public finances. It is a major challenge that the current government has and that it must approach with maximum responsibility, given all the macroeconomic benchmarks. It is well known that we are facing a huge budget deficit, an increase in public debt costs, but also a slowing economy, even with a risk of reaching the unfortunate level of recession or recession status,” Daniel Apostol, general director of the Energy Employers’ Federation (FPE) said in a press conference.

“We all have to participate in this effort to balance the fiscal and budgetary balance, and here I want to welcome the current finance minister’s willingness to engage in dialogue with the business community. We have had concrete reactions regarding the measures that tend to overburden the business community. I will quote here a very well-known entrepreneur who said that the state should realize that it is the main partner of all businesspeople, because the state takes its share of every business through taxes and duties, regardless of the company’s evolution. The state is the most present shareholder in the Romanian business community, beyond holding shares in various companies.

Therefore, the authorities must be sensitive to the way in which the private economy bears the burden of the budget imbalance and the fiscal overburden.

I believe that there is a risk, that of the boomerang effect trap, when you take ad hoc measures in the hope of solving a momentary problem, but which may have a negative effect in the long term. I am referring here, for example, to the discussions about increasing the tax regime for dividends. Does it discourage or encourage investors? Obviously, it discourages. Or Romania has in its economic strategy to increase the number of investors, to increase the participation of the population in the capital market.

I believe that there is a need for a sincere, transparent dialogue with the business environment regarding fiscal and budgetary rebalancing.”