According to a bill recently registered in Parliament, the initiators want to grant monthly allowances of at least one minimum wage to those who have three or more children.
The proposed document also encourages public-private partnerships for the construction of kindergartens and nurseries and proposes to grant a hot meal to all pupils attending state education.
However, we point out that for all these, the initiative does not indicate the sources of funding for its implementation, making only a vague reference to the “national budget”.
Thus, the initiative aims to take measures to stimulate the birth rate in Romania and contains three proposals which, in the initiators’ view, are intended to halt the demographic decline of the country’s population.
The first proposal refers to people who have three or more children up to the age of 18, who will be granted a monthly allowance that is not taxable and not subject to execution (except in the case where it has been granted unjustly).
The proposed amounts are:
the equivalent of one minimum wage for three children;
1.5 net minimum wages for those with four children;
two net minimum wages for five children;
2.5 net minimum wages for six or more children.
The amounts would be granted to all those who meet the criteria related to the number of children, a condition being that beneficiaries must have taxable income, from wages or pensions, regardless of the amount.
In the case of mothers on parental leave, the proposal stipulates that they must have earned taxable income in 12 of the last 24 months before the birth (or adoption).
Also, to qualify, parents or carers must be Romanian citizens, domiciled in Romania, and children in care must be enrolled in an educational establishment after the age of three.
We stress that the benefits proposed in this initiative would be granted to a single person if there are two carers and would cease if custody of the child is lost.
Another proposed measure aims at building and upgrading public-private day-care centres and kindergartens. To this end, the draft provides for the possibility of granting land concessions for a period of 49 years, tax exemption for a period of five years for the companies involved in these partnerships and the provision of utilities from local budgets.
The third proposal refers to the extension of the “A hot meal at school” programme, which has been running since 2020 and currently covers 450 schools. In the form in which it was submitted to the Senate, the initiative proposes that all schools should be included in the programme by the end of 2036.