Romanian President: Don't delude yourself with salaries boosted before elections, you lose the money to inflation in the coming months

Romanian President Traian Basescu attended the Romanian Academic Staff Congress on Friday. He told teachers and professors to stop deceiving themselves with salaries increased during election campaigns, because they’re always losing the money after the elections, due to inflation. He also appreciated that the decline of the Romanian education system was the result of a „good understanding” between politicians and unions.

Present on Friday at the Academic Staff Congress, President Basescu told professors and teachers that he was not there to promise them better incomes. „I’m here you to show you my respect and to convince you that you need to be part of a efficient education system. You cannot rely solely on the satisfactions negotiated by unions from time to time”, Basescu said according to Mediafax press agency.

According to him, the money showers before elections „mean inflation in the months to come, the incomes are the same and the teacher’s capacity to buy drops in line with the pre-election excesses. My appeal to you is do not delude yourself”, the President added. In his opinion, if the next generations are not going to produce performance, Romania will end up importing everything.

Traian Basescu insisted to give his opinion on the current situation of the education system, saying that it was caused by its centralisation. „I’m going to tell you something you won’t like. If there has been a major depreciation of the education system, it is the result of a good understanding between politicians and unions”, Basescu told teachers present at the Congress.

He added that it was always the case before the elections that compromises have been made on education quality. According to him, most of these have been made with „temporarily delusions, with a patched up Income Law or Education Law, with gaining short-life satisfactions, downgrading the core of the educational act and the income system”.

In October last year, before the parliamentary elections, Traian Basescu passed the law granting a 50% plus to incomes in the academic sector, voted unanimously in the Legislative forum. But the law has not been enforced. The chief of state said in January 2009 that the increasing economic crises questioned whether the income adjustment.