Romanian minister defers talks on public sector pay law until 2027

Romania missed the deadline for adopting a new pay system for the public sector, losing a EUR 770 million grant under the RRF.

When he resigned in April this year, Manole had not left behind a draft law, while the Social Democrats rejected the version drawn up by interim minister Dragoș Pîslaru.

The pay law is more important than the RRF grant that Romania has lost, Moody’s warned in August, when president Nicușor Dan concluded that no agreement on the project could be reached. The public sector wage bill accounts for 20% of the country’s budget, the rating agency warned. The lack of transparency results in uncontrolled and sometimes unplanned increases in public spending.

In early September, president Dan said that rating agencies considered it “very healthy” for Romania to have a pay law in place by the end of the year. Interim labour minister Pîslaru said at the time that, if adopted before the European Commission’s final RRF review scheduled for November, the law could help Romania recover part of the EUR 770 million grant it had lost.

Speaking about the pay law on Antena 3 on October 31, Manole said that “the process has advanced” and that negotiations to reach a political consensus must resume next year, News.ro reported.

“Negotiations must resume at the beginning of next year, after we gather the information that we lacked last year and this year: information about public sector salaries,” the labour minister said.

“Rebuilding the salary scale and bringing equity to the system means that we will have to have increases everywhere,” Manole said when asked whether the salaries of senior public officials would also increase.

The issue of senior officials’ salaries emerged during the latest negotiations on the pay law, which included significant proposed increases for ministers, state secretaries and mayors.

The minimum wage level will be reviewed in November.

Separately, Manole announced that the government would discuss a possible increase in the minimum wage in November.

“Certainly, this discussion will take place in November. Theoretically, there is a possibility that it will be increased; however, the government programme says that we will index it within a 12-month horizon. This is exactly the wording in the government programme,” the labour minister said.