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President Basescu promulgated law on 50 percent raise in teachers' salariesa

President Traian Basescu announced on Friday, at Cotroceni presidential Palace, that he promulgated the law on a 50 percent increase in the salaries of the teaching staff.The head of state said he promulgated the law because it is constitutional, the judges of the Constitutional Court said so, the law observes the international obligations assumed by Romania in the field of education, it is in concord with the Lisbon Strategy and is opportune in the context in which the entire political class signed a National Pact for Education, initiated by the Presidency.

Basescu said that the promulgation of a law is a constitutional prerogative of the head of state. He added that a third aspect the president has to take into account is the opportunity of the promulgation of the law, showing that the only alternative is that of returning the law to Parliament. Basescu stressed that the law is opportune. He mentioned that all the parties signed a pact for education, proposed by the Presidency.

'I believe the law is opportune also because three big unions joined the pact, as well as 28 organizations of the civil and scientific society. I have also considered that a good teacher has to be part of the system of education, of reform, ' said the president.According to him, with the current salaries it would be impossible for the Romanian education system to have teachers training children in fields such as the IT, foreign languages, physics or mathematics.

In Basescu's opinion, no good faculty graduate would enter the system of education for a salary of 700 lei, common in the system. He added that that can be seen also from the fact that currently there are 9,000 replacement teachers, which is a premise for tuition to be poor. In the opinion of the head of state, the budget can be built on priorities. 'It is only a matter of will, if you want to ensure the funding of the education system or not, if you want to ensure resources for the salaries of teachers or not, ' said Basescu.

The Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) decided, on Oct 15, that the decision of the Parliament of Romania to raise the pensions of teachers by 50 percent is constitutional, thus rejecting a notification of the Government, sent on Oct 9, which challenged the rise in the salaries of the teaching staff, because no financing sources have been shown in the normative act okayed by Parliament.

Teacher Salary Hikes Are Unacceptable - Romanian PMRomanian Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu asked politicians and union leaders to understand that a the 50% hike in teacher salaries will have a catastrophic effect on the economy, and added Romania cannot afford to apply such an irresponsible measure. Tariceanu again said he will not allow such a salary hike to be applied.He added Romania is faced with a decisive choice for the future, namely the road to economic growth and prosperity, or an irresponsible salary hike and irresponsible leftists policies "that will kneel Romania." "I regretfully notice that some of the politicians decided Romania should follow a path of political instability and crisis. We need to show responsibility regarding the increases in pay, not only for teachers, but for everybody. Everyone, from politicians to union leaders, needs to understand that such a measure is catastrophic for Romanian economy, a matter made worse by the huge world economic and financial crisis that might strike at Romania's economy," Tariceanu said.He cited several previous statements issued by president Traian Basescu, who criticized the Government for having used much of the Ministry of Education's budget on salary hikes and not on school upgrades, adding the current global financial crisis will have serious effects if the economic policy is not a prudent one.

Antonescu: the government has two possibilities: to assume the economic risk or to resignThe PNL vicechairman Crin Antonescu stated on Friday that the government has two options: to apply the law of teachers' salary increase by 50%,thus assuming the economic risk with the parliament and the president or to analyse their resignation. " I am not surprised by the fact that the president adopted the law and I am not surprised by the fact that, in his public statement, there were elements of electoral campaign. The president is covered in his decision by the vote of the parliament and the decision of the Constitutional Court and the most difficult decision comes to the government" Crin Antonescu said.

The PNL leader underlined that, according to his opinion, the executive has two variants: to assume the economic risk generated by the application of the law or the serious analysis of resignation. "The government has two possibilities, in my opinion. The first, to apply the law thus assuming, together with the parliament and the president the responsibility for the major risk that it brings with regards to the evolution and economic stability of Romania, the second to be true to its own options and evaluations and to analyse the possibility of resignation" Antonescu concluded.

Fitch: if it brings other requests, the decision regarding the teachers' salaries may become dangerous The decision to increase the teachers' salaries does not have, in itself a decisive impact on Romania's country rating, but it could become dangerous if it draws other requests, the manager of public finances department of Fitch Ratings, Andrew Colquhoun said for NewsIn.

« It is bad news, but the main risks for the country rating come from the current account deficit and the stock of foreign debt. Moreover, we watch the possible weaknesses of the banking system" Colquhoun said. The rating agency estimates a current account deficit of 14.5% of the GDP for this year, estimate which they revised from 17% of GDP at the beginning of September, the Fitch official mentioned.

On the other hand, he mentioned that « the country rating is under continuous monitoring, being modified according to the evolution of the economy, not at a determined interval".

Asked if Romania risks to follow Hungary who in 2002 did the same thing, Colquhoun said that " Romania has a more solid fiscal position" than the neighbouring state but he mentioned that this could worsen. The economist in Fitch estimates for 2009 an increase of the Romanian economy by 4% according to the scenario and warns that a powerful calming down of the GDP advance puts the fiscal power under pressure. On a long term, the main issue of Romania ‘s accession to the euro zone is " monetary policy".

« The budgetary deficit will be over 3% of GDP for 2009 but this is not the most important challenge. It is not impossible, but it is harder for Romania to bring inflation to a lower level and to stabilize the exchange rate. On a long term, the pressures for the depreciation of the leu are obvious, mainly due to the current account deficit." Andrew Colquhoun said.

At the beginning of the year, the Fitch rating agency announced that they dropped the rating for Romania from " stable" to " negative" a few months after Standard&Poor's took a similar decision. The following stage after such measure, in the case where the economic data about Romania do not improve, it the lowering of the country rating.

Romania has allocated, at present, the « BBB » qualifications for long-term credits in hard currency, " BBB+" for long-term credits in lei "F3" for short term credits in hard currency and the country ceiling " A-".

Economic analysts on teaching staff wage rise The 50 pct raise in the teaching staff's wages will not trigger a crisis or any dramatic issue in Romanian economy, but chain effects in the publicly-financed sector need to be avoided, director of the Group for Applied Economy (GEA) Liviu Voinea on Friday told Agerpres. 'What the government should do at this moment is to make it clear that wages in the publicly-paid sector need to be frozen for some time, say a year. Taken by itself, the raise in the teaching staff wages is not capable of triggering a dramatic problem or a crisis in Romanian economy, but chain effects, specifically subsequent 50 pct rises in the publicly-paid sector need to be prevented,' said Voinea.

He added that the government has caused a true psychosis over this hike, alleging that it would be a drama for Romanian economy, although the budget assigned to education this year is far from being outrun and there are other areas in the public sector where resources are being squandered and that should indeed be plugged.

In the opinion of the GEA representative, a political agreement would be necessary to freeze wages in other publicly paid sectors, or maybe a moratorium on wage rises like the one adopted in Estonia in summer this year.

'The rise in the teaching staff's wages alone would not cause trouble in economy, but I don't think that an agreement will be reached to freeze wages in other publicly-paid sectors,' the president of the Romanian Chartered Financial Analysts Dragos Cabat told Agerpres. According to the financial analyst, these wage hikes will tip the budget, widening the budget deficit and will definitely result in inflationist pressure.'Nobody will be willing to give up a wage supplementation, especially now, with the upcoming elections. Next year's annual inflation will probably rise 1-1.5 percentage points because of this supplementation alone,' said Cabat.

 

Sursa: http://www.actmedia.ro

Tags: decision government economy budget salary teachers opinion economic crisis deficit wages publicly rating country fitch other president romanian teachers salaries teaching raise percent basescu promulgated would constitutional according current system parliament added romania education euro

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