Romania’s interim Minister of Labor, Dragoș Pîslaru, has said the government is moving towards assuming responsibility for the full legislative package linked to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), including the draft wage law, in an extraordinary parliamentary session, Mediafax reported on June 21. The tight deadline requires such a solution, he implied.

Last week, the business association Concordia estimated that Romania could still absorb between 30% and 70% of the EUR 10 billion expected this year, depending on the administration's performance.

Pîslaru said the future executive is expected to take political responsibility for the entire reform package, arguing that accelerated procedures may be required to meet implementation deadlines set under the EU-funded recovery program.

He noted that work on the wage law is continuing despite reduced public communication in recent weeks. “The salary law, despite the fact that we no longer communicated publicly, we continued to work on it,” Pîslaru said.

The minister added that consultations have been held with local government associations, including the Union of County Councils, the Association of Municipalities, and the Association of Communes, as part of ongoing revisions to the draft.

Pîslaru said the objective is to present an improved version of the wage law in the coming week, describing it as a key structural reform within the broader PNRR framework.

At the government level, he said the preferred option is for the executive to assume responsibility for the entire legislative package, which includes several interconnected reforms.

“This can be done in an extraordinary session of Parliament. There is enough time to do it before August 31,” he said, referring to the implementation deadline.

He added that four of the laws included in the package are already in parliamentary procedure, but legislative delays have reinforced the case for consolidating the reforms under a single government responsibility procedure.

Pîslaru said the emerging approach reflects the need to ensure timely delivery of commitments under the recovery plan, concluding that “the option I see now is to assume responsibility for the entire package of laws.”

(Photo: LCVA | Dreamstime.com)

iulian@romania-insider.com