The Romanian government has recently initiated a public debate on its proposed package of 47 measures to eradicate poverty.
The Romanian government has recently initiated a public debate on its proposed package of 47 measures to eradicate poverty. Chiefly aimed at Romania's 1.7 million minors at risk of poverty, the package also targets other social categories as well, such as the elderly, in a move to promote active aging. Prime minister Dacian Ciolos with details about the anti-poverty programme:
"We want to provide identification for all newborn children, apart from support for medical screening and vaccination. Some children are born into families who do not have an established place of domicile so they cannot be provided with identity papers, thus being left out of the support system. We need a solution for such cases. We also want to reduce school dropout levels among school-age children. In the case of young people who have abandoned school early and have little chances of finding a job, the Employment Agency should have a more proactive approach and develop assistance programmes meant to identify these cases and help the young people in question integrate into the labour market or continue their education through a programme called A Second Chance in School."
We often hear that Romania is one of the poorest countries in the European Union, but what exactly is the scale of poverty in this country? Monitorul Social, a project developed by the Friedrich Ebert Romania Foundation, has been attempting to answer this question for a year. It has collected and analysed social and economic data from various national and European institutions, seeking to present and explain the results to the public in a clear and accessible manner.
After looking at all the figures, it was clear that some of them were misleading, says Victoria Stoiciu, a programme coordinator with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. She gave as an example the data indicating that Romania has one of lowest unemployment rates in the European Union. The official data regarding employment and unemployment rates and those concerning self-employed people are, in fact, concealing a very tough reality. Victoria Stoiciu explains:
"Employment is defined in the European Union in relation to people doing salaried or non-salaried work. The latter category includes, for example, all types of self-employed occupations. According to this definition, Romania has a decent employment rate at over 60%, which is close to the EU average, yet not exactly meeting the target stipulated in the European Union's 2020 growth strategy. But if we look more closely at the numbers, we see Romania has some 4.5 million salaried workers and 3 million people performing non-salaried work. In the latter category, half are self-employed people. The rest, who are classified as non-salaried family workers, work in their own households but do not have an income and do not get paid at the end of the month. They are in effect unemployed. In statistical terms, however, they are considered employed. 90% of all self-employed people in Romania work in agriculture, which is in fact a type of subsistence work. "
Salaried workers are not doing much better, either, given that the gross minimum monthly wage in Romania stands at 218 euros, the lowest in the European Union with the exception of Bulgaria. At the end of 2015, the net average wage in Romania amounted to 473 euros. Furthermore, the so-called "social transfers", namely unemployment benefits, child allowances, pensions and welfare benefits, account for a maximum of 16% of the GDP. While the European Union average in this respect stands at more than 20%, Romania is again behind other member states, with the lowest social protection expenditure in the Union.
Victoria Stoiciu, a programme coordinator with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, shares her view on the government's recent anti-poverty programme:
"It is a good package. There is nothing bad I can say about it. I should like to make two observations, however. An anti-poverty strategy for the 2015-2020 period was already adopted at the beginning of 2015, a strategy I considered OK. So I don't understand why the current government didn't continue what was done in the past. The current government has not criticised the old strategy, but it has still preferred to come up with a new one, which is also a good strategy. Governments in Romania have this habit of erasing everything the former governments did before them, so there is no continuity in terms of public policies. Although there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the new anti-poverty programme, we have to go to the root of the problem to eradicate poverty. And the cause of the problem is the lack of jobs. "
The new anti-poverty package also comprises examples of best practice, pilot programmes run by non-governmental organisations that have been included in the national legislation. One such project, developed by the OvidiuRo Association, aims to keep children from underprivileged families in primary school. Under the project, these families receive a voucher worth a little over 10 euros to help with the costs associated with keeping their children in primary school. The list of children eligible for this programme was submitted by the local authorities by February 10. In the meantime, the central authorities have begun to funnel the money to the local budgets.
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