15 minutes and 21 graphs explaining the situation of Romania from Ilie Bolojan's perspective
Ilie Bolojan. Photo: Inquam Photos / Octav Ganea
In about a quarter of an hour, the 21 graphs that the PNL interim president presented on Friday, in a press conference at the Senate, presented to explain the “complicated” situation of Romania, as described by Ilie Bolojan. They contain data on budget deficit, the largest in the EU, public debt and other factors who brought us to this point.
In 2024, Romania received 575 billion lei, but spent 727 billion lei, thus having a budget deficit of 9.3% of the gross domestic product, more than any other EU country.
“We are in a complicated situation (…). First of all, as a country, we have a very large budget deficit, that is the difference between the revenues we receive and expenses is the largest in Europe (…). The budget deficit was last year at 9.3% of the gross domestic product, so it is a very large deficit, which is accumulated for many years, which means a power,” Bolojan.
Also in 2024, the public debt of Romania was 964 billion lei, representing 54.8% of GDP, and for 2025 it is estimated at 1,100 billion lei, or 58.1% of GDP.
The analysis presented by the PNL leader also shows that Romania received 10.7 billion euros from the allocation it has through the PNRR, of 28.5 billion euros, ie a share of 36.5%, representing the pre-financing and three payment requests. From the amounts attracted, 4.3 billion euros are loans.
From the cohesion funds for the financial year 2021-2027, of 31 billion euros, the Romanian state received only 3.3 billion euros (10.5%).
The causes identified for the current economic situation of Romania are: the expenses that did not take into account the income; too small number of active people in the working population (51% inactivity rate per age group 55-64, the highest in the EU); The small weight of taxpayers to the public pension system out of the total population (46%, penultimate in the EU).
According to the chapter “Low revenues to the state budget due to tax evasion, bad legislation and low administration performance” from research, Eurostat data places Romania on the antepentime position in the EU as a level of tax revenues, of 27.2% of GDP.
Last but not least, the research presented by Ilie Bolojan shows that, according to INScop, a share of 66.3% of Romanians believe that the country is heading in a wrong direction, while only 24.2% believe that things are in a good direction.
