Romania to Cut State Wages and Jobs

Romania will freeze salaries and will cut around 100,000 public sector jobs next year in order to meet the requirements attached to an IMF-led rescue deal, the designated Finance Minister, Sebastian Vladescu, said on Tuesday.

Vladescu, a technocrat in the new proposed government, added during a parliamentary hearing that the budget deficit will be brought down to 5.9 percent of gross domestic product in 2010.
 
Parliament is expected to endorse a government line-up proposed by Prime Minister-designate Emil Boc in a vote of confidence on Wednesday.
 
Boc on Sunday nominated a 15-member cabinet whose main aim is to restore public confidence and unblock the IMF bailout deal.
 
The new cabinet is based on a coalition between the centre-right Democratic Party, PLD, and a party of ethnic Hungarians, UDMR, with support from independent members of parliament.
 
The new government faces one of the biggest challenges in the country’s post-communist history as Boc tries to bring Romania out of deep recession and speed up preparations to join the euro-zone.
 
On December 17, the newly elected President, Traian Basescu, nominated Boc, current acting Prime Minister, to head a new government after he lost a vote of no-confidence in parliament in October.