Luca Niculescu on the budget situation: “You can no longer introduce austerity measures without stirring up even greater tensions”

Prime Minister Luca Niculescu announced on Tuesday evening that the Finance Minister would present Romania’s fiscal and budgetary situation over the next two to three weeks. The report is expected to show exactly the conditions under which the government was taken over and what the main economic challenges are.

Niculescu avoided saying whether the new cabinet had found a budgetary “hole” or a “difficult legacy,” stating that the data was still being collected. He specified that the report would be made public in a format yet to be determined, either in Parliament, at the Government or at the Ministry of Finance.

The Prime Minister stressed that Romania is undergoing a process of fiscal consolidation, with the objective of reducing the deficit to the level agreed with the European Commission. He warned, however, that new austerity measures could intensify social tensions, given that the population’s purchasing power had already been affected.

“I cannot say that being Prime Minister of Romania is the easiest job; on the contrary, I believe it is one of the most complex and complicated, especially in such a context. We have a country to govern; we knew what the challenges were, and we still have to collect some data to see exactly what the country’s fiscal and budgetary situation looks like. There will be communication from the Finance Minister relatively soon, and then we will know exactly where we stand. Yes, Romania is in a period of fiscal consolidation; this means that we have to move from a deficit that was very large to a deficit that fits within the path agreed with the European Commission,” the Prime Minister stated.

Niculescu warned that Romania’s entry into the “junk” category would have negative consequences and said that the government must find a balance between reducing the deficit and protecting the population. The Prime Minister added that the Executive is working intensively and that one of its missions is to restore trust and hope.