Outgoing PM Ilie Bolojan warns Romania could derail again if next government abandons reforms

Romania Insider · 20.10.2026, 07:48:46

Ilie Bolojan, who was appointed prime minister of Romania in June 2025 and became the longest-serving interim PM since his dismissal in May of this year, took stock of his mandate at the helm of the executive on Monday, October 19, in a press conference. Fiscal measures Bolojan, who is also president of the National Liberal Party (PNL), has continuously battled a ballooning public deficit throughout his mandate, with moderate success. This week, the government announced that the general government budget deficit contracted by 23% y/y to RON 78.5 billion (EUR 14.7 billion) in January-September 2026, accounting for 3.8% of GDP, down from 5.3% of GDP in the same period of 2025. Bolojan took credit for the lower deficit during the conference, and said that when he took office, the country had its “back against the wall,” but that he had managed to avoid a downgrade and begin a series of reforms. “We were forced to start by increasing VAT. We urgently needed to bring money into the budget and reduce the deficit. We did not hide anything from Romanians, we did not change the figures, and we refused to make promises without backing,” Ilie Bolojan said. The interim PM thanked employees, entrepreneurs, and pensioners for the financial strains they had to bear in the past year, particularly higher living costs and taxation. He also spoke about the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). “I found it blocked, overcontracted, delayed, and on the verge of failure. We renegotiated it and restarted it. Romania has so far received 65% of the value of the PNRR and still has two payment requests pending review by the European Commission. These would bring the total to 90% of the grant initially allocated. The percentage would have been close to 100% if the PSD (the Social Democratic Party) had not blocked the adoption of the unified pay law in August,” he said. Ilie Bolojan underlined that despite the deficit, investments had increased by more than RON 25 billion compared with t