Trade Union leaders do not like the proposal in the draft budget for 2014 to 2016 according to which wages in the civil service should remain frozen for another year. The last tariff salaries in the civil service increased was in 2010, by 1 percent. “After several years of zero valorisation of tariff salaries and declining real wages in the state and public administration, we demand a fundamentally different approach to wage policy,” reads a statement of the Trade Unions Confederation.
Social partners should have discussed the material at their tripartite meeting on Monday, but ultimately it was removed from the agenda at the request of the trade unionists.
The Trade Unions Confederation has been also criticising the budget of the education sector and calls for an increase in funding for science and research. Similarly, in the health care chapter they demand that the Health Ministry increase payments for those insured by the state such as pensioners, students or people with disabilities. In mid-August, the Finance Ministry presented the first draft budget for next year, which softens its original consolidation plan. For the next year, the government aims to achieve a budget deficit of 2.9 percent of GDP, while in its latest stability program it predicted a deficit of 2.6 percent of GDP for this year and 2.4 percent for 2014. The government maintains that it is in line with the European Commission’s initiative, which under certain conditions allows a slower pace of consolidation in order to support economic growth.
