On Tuesday 28 October in Bucharest, the European Commissioner for the Economy Valdis Dombrovskis, encouraged the Romanian government to “stay the course” of fiscal consolidation in order to meet the commitments made at European level, which include reducing the public deficit from 9.3% to “8.4% of GDP” between 2024 and 2025.
“By far the highest in the entire European Union”, the current public deficit figures are “clearly unsustainable”, said Mr Dombrovskis. He noted the ‘robust” measures announced this summer by Ilie Bolojan’s government, the scale of which is likely to tackle the “urgent challenges” facing the Romanian economy.
At the end of November, the European Commission will again assess whether Romania is in a position to meet its fiscal commitments for 2025. This assessment, “if positive, it will allow to stop the macroeconomic conditionality procedure and thus avoid suspension of EU funds”, stressed Mr Dombrovskis (see EUROPE 13690/16).
Romania is the subject of an excessive deficit procedure that was initiated even before the Covid-19 pandemic, and which was re-launched with the reform of the Stability and Growth Pact. It committed to eliminating this excessive deficit by 2030. Faced with the budgetary slippage observed, in July it initiated a rare procedure, which could ultimately lead to the freezing of European cohesion funds.
Mr Bolojan said that in November his government would try to push through a new package of measures, including “spending cuts, increased revenues and investment”, in order to “ensure budgetary stability for 2026”. We want to achieve a deficit target of “close to 6.0%” of GDP next year so as to “remain credible” in the eyes of the Commission and the financial markets, he added.
RRF. Romania has also requested a revision of its post-Covid-19 recovery plan, which, if approved by the Ecofin Council, will enable it to invest “€10 billion” between now and August 2026, the deadline for spending under the Next Generation EU recovery plan. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)