Romania’s labour minister steps down

Romanian Labour Minster Ana Costea has tendered her resignation, becoming the first minister to leave Dacian Cioloss cabinet.

Daniela Budu, 15.04.2016, 14:24

Ana Costea, a labour minister in the government
headed by Dacian Ciolos, handed in her resignation on Thursday and the prime
minister accepted it. Her resignation comes after trade unions in the public
sector voiced their discontent with a planned emergency
ordinance on state sector salaries, a document Ana Costea eventually refused to
support. Trade unions say the proposed ordinance would only widen the gap
between low earners and high earners in the public sector, with teachers in
fact losing money and with salaries in the healthcare sector going up
insignificantly.

According
to Dumitru Costin, the president of the National Trade Union Bloc, outgoing
labour minister Ana Costea could have done a lot of good things as a minister,
but she just wasn’t allowed to. Dumitru Costin:

I had high expectations
from the labour minister at first but then I started to realise that she was
being gradually stripped of some of her initial responsibilities such as
drafting the salary law for the public sector. I have found out that, two
months ago, this task was taken over by the Government’s General Secretariat.
Also, when I asked minister Costea to withdraw the draft law, she said she
would resign unless the law was withdrawn. To me it was more than obvious that
she had not drawn up this law herself but that she had been obliged to take
responsibility for it. She could have done many good things as a minister, but
she just wasn’t allowed to.

A former labour minister herself, the vice
president of the Social Democratic Party, Rovana Plumb, has said that Ana
Costea’s resignation delays a possible solution for the imbalances in the
public salary system. On the other hand, the co-president of the National
Liberal Party, Alina Gorghiu, says Ana Costea’s resignation was the natural
thing to do, as her actions would have hurt the government’s image.

In the meantime, prime minister Dacian Ciolos said talks on
state sector salaries would continue next week to work out a solution that is
acceptable for state employees and feasible from a budgetary and legal point of
view. The government’s spokesman, Dan Suciu, has said a possible increase
in public sector salaries depends on the financial resources available. Dan
Suciu:

When this government took over, the 2016 state budget had already
been drawn up and it did not contain any elements that would sustain salary
increases. What we will try to do, if we reach an agreement with trade unions,
is to find additional resources. We will look again at the budget and see if we
can find additional financing sources so as to be able to change the budget.

The labour ministry has recently said in a press release that at
least ten versions of the salary law have been drawn up. The idea of an
emergency ordinance was eventually preferred because it was less costly and
easier to implement.