Romania - VAT raise instead of pension cuts - June 29, 2010

A day after the Constitutional Court blocked the government’s plans to cut pensions by 15%, the government announced to raise the Value-Added-Tax (VAT) by 5%. From 1 July, VAT will go up to 24%, while the flat-rate income tax will remain at 16%. Till the very end, pensioners had fiercely protested the planned cuts, also outside Constitutional Court in Bucharest during the Court meeting. After the national strike of 31 May, trade unions continued their protests right up to the national mobilisation outside parliament on 15 June. On that day, over 20,000 workers and pensioners gathered for a human chain around the Romanian Parliament. The action on 15 June was to provide support to the vote of no confidence in the government. However, the government survived and pressed ahead with the cuts that were due to take effect from 1 July.

English: http://www.euronews.net/2010/06/26/romanian-government-raises-vat;

http://www.epsu.org/cob/369; http://www.epsu.org/a/6603

This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI atwww.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2009.