The 2025 budget was presented to the International Monetary Fund mission, which had no recommendations to make to the Romanian side, Finance Minister Tanczos Barna said on Tuesday."We received no recommendation on no visit, from anyone. (...) My colleagues had a purely technical discussion where we made a presentation of the budget. Period," the finance minister said after the debates on the general directions in the 2025 state budget blueprint held in the joint budget & finance committees of Parliament.Asked about the danger of Romania ending up in the 'junk' category of non-investment grade countries, after two rating agencies downgraded its outlook to negative, Barna replied: "I am convinced that Romania will not end up in junk. It's a strong signal, and this signal was received by the government and the governing coalition, and that's exactly why the budget is built on a 7% deficit. That is precisely why we were at ECOFIN last week and we committed once again to observe that calendar for reaching 3% in 7 years. That is precisely why we had a meeting with the World Bank, we met with investors, in order to convey this firm commitment of Romania: no matter the government at rule, no matter who the prime minister or the finance minister is, for 7 years Romania will stick to this plan. It is priority No. 1 for anyone who comes to government that Romania returns to a 3% deficit, that it continues investments and that we do not revert to a 3% deficit on the account of slashing investments from the budget. This parallelism can be maintained. We have European funds that support investments and we have a very firm commitment. You've seen that Mr. Bolojan has already started downsizing the staff at the institutions he leads. Reform has begun at county councils too, and we need reforms to keep spending under control," added the finance minister.An International Monetary Fund mission is in Bucharest over February 3 - 7 to review the latest economic developments and update forecasts.Currently, Romania does not have a financing agreement with the International Monetary Fund, but the financial institution annually evaluates the Romanian economy, based on Article IV consultations.As far as the rating outlook is concerned, in December 2024, rating agency Fitch announced that it had worsened Romania's outlook from stable to negative, and in January this year S&P Global made a similar announcement.
Participation in cultural education activities continues to be limited, with the main barriers being difficult access, insufficient knowledge, and cost, the recently released Cultural Consumption Barometer 2024 shows. The report showed that many Romanians still associate culture with entertainment rather than with personal development or furthering their knowledge. The need for relaxation dominates in cultural […]
Roughly 84% of Romanians say that the pace of the state’s digitalization is slow or very slow, according to an Edge Institute & AtlasIntel study presented at the Digital Governance Summit 2025, which took place on Tuesday, November 25, at the presidential palace in Bucharest. The survey aims to capture the way citizens relate to […]
Romania’s Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM) issued a negative opinion on the new bill regarding magistrates’ pensions. The move is only the latest development concerning a heated issue that led to tensions between the executive and the judiciary branch. CSM’s opinion is consultative, and the government led by Ilie Bolojan can still take responsibility for […]
Romania took the presidency of the Central European Initiative (or CEI) on Wednesday, November 26, according to a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE). The organization is a regional intergovernmental forum established in 1989, following the fall of the Berlin Wall. It gathers 17 Member States in Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern Europe […]
Trade between Romania and Poland continues to grow, with annual bilateral exchanges in goods now valued at more than EUR 12 billion, according to figures presented by the Polish-Romanian Bilateral Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PRBCC). The data was released during a reception in Bucharest marking Poland’s Independence Day and Romania’s National Day. Polish investments […]
As Romania moves closer to implementing the EU Pay Transparency Directive, local employers are preparing for one of the most consequential shifts in workplace regulation in over a decade. The directive, set for transposition by June 2026, introduces strict new rules on salary disclosure, pay reporting, and equal-pay verification, aiming to close persistent gender gaps […]
