Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan explained on Monday evening that the most important thing is to tell partners the truth, whether it’s the European Commission, investors, rating agencies, or citizens, and once you’ve committed to doing certain things, you should follow through and do them.
This builds trust and predictability, the prime minister believes, stating that this is how he managed to convince the European Commission to accept a deficit of 8.4% for this year.
"One of the important things in relationships with partners, partners meaning our creditors, rating agencies, the European Commission, investors in Romania, citizens of Romania, is to try to be credible and tell people the truth, and if you can do certain things, take responsibility for them and actually do them, and if you can't achieve certain goals, it's much fairer to explain why you can't reach these objectives.
Please consider that, given that this government has been in office for three months, whatever measures you take, you cannot have effects for the whole year. Because we have taken measures that only apply to the last four months of the year, some of them apply from January 1st next year, so the effects for these months were practically reduced to less than 1% of the Gross Domestic Product," stated Ilie Bolojan.
He specified that he had to explain to the European Commission the budgetary realities.
"We had to explain as clearly as possible to the Commission what the budgetary realities are, and obviously, based on a plan we have to respect the targets we set for ourselves, because this is an indicator of trust for our country, both in front of citizens and our partners. Any higher level of trust means loans with lower interest rates, a greater willingness to invest in Romania, because people know what they are based on if they are told that a certain thing will happen or that there will be a certain predictability. They know that those things will be respected, and this is not done overnight," the prime minister conveyed.
Bolojan was also asked if there are discussions about further tax increases from 2026.
"At the moment, neither in negotiations with the Commission, nor in discussions within the Government or the coalition, are there such proposals. The issue is not tax increases, but our issue is to reduce our expenses. The measures taken so far have some effects, and in 2026, the effects will be seen. The cumulative effects should be over 2% of the Gross Domestic Product, which is why we aim to have the deficit next year in a range that approaches as close as possible to 6%, so 8.4 minus approximately 2%, so below 6.5%, in order to gradually reduce the loans Romania takes, stabilize our interest rates so that we have budgetary room to support investment projects to create conditions for our country to develop in the following year," stated Ilie Bolojan.