“Based on the information I have, much of which is public, the financial situation appears to be very difficult,” Grindeanu said, as reported by B1tv.ro.
He accused the outgoing government of deferring expenditure to keep the budget deficit down.
“It is easy to boast about a small deficit when you have not paid your bills or covered the state’s essential operating expenses by the end of the year,” the PSD leader said.
Asked where the money for not one but two planned budget rectifications would come from, Grindeanu replied: “I am not the prime minister. Mr Luca Niculescu will answer these questions, and the line ministers will respond on their respective areas. What I said earlier, however, is that we need to start with something else before the rectification: presenting the situation. The up-to-date financial situation must first be presented in Parliament. We have set a two-week deadline.”
Romania’s Ministry of Finance published the budget execution figures for January–September at the end of last week, after releasing public debt data through the end of July.
Romania’s public deficit widened slightly in Q3, but remained moderate in January–September.
The general government budget deficit contracted by 23% y/y to RON 78.5 billion (EUR 14.7 billion) in January–September, accounting for 3.8% of GDP, down from 5.3% of GDP in the same period of 2025.
Preliminary data discussed at a government meeting on October 16 indicate a slight deterioration in budget execution in Q3, but this does not put the full-year deficit target of 6.2% of GDP at risk. The target is 1.45 percentage points (pp) below the 7.65% recorded in 2025.
Romania’s debt-to-GDP ratio remains below 60% at end-July.
Romania’s gross public debt, measured under the EU’s ESA methodology, increased by RON 67.7 billion year-to-date through the end of July, equivalent to EUR 12.9 billion at the current exchange rate, according to the latest data published by the Finance Ministry. The debt-to-GDP ratio reached 59.8%, up from 58.9% at the end of 2025, based on our calculations using revised GDP figures.
The dynamics of public debt and the debt-to-GDP ratio during the first seven months of 2026 reveal three notable aspects: the revised debt-to-GDP trajectory is now entirely below the 60% threshold; the ratio increased by only 0.9 percentage points during the period; and the entire increase in public debt was generated by foreign-currency-denominated debt, while debt denominated in local currency remained broadly unchanged.