If we do not correct the budget deficit, we will lose everything we have gained in the last months, warns Isărescu

“If we don't correct the budget deficit, we lose everything we've gained in the last few months: credibility, accessibility on external parts, country rating, and so on,” warned BNR governor Mugur Isărescu on Thursday.

“I didn't get to enter this building, because I was given the task of getting money. We didn't have external debt then, but no one would lend us, because the way in which the former regime had paid the external debt had definitively isolated us from the international world and the world of capitals. But we had to resume relations with the Fund”, recalled Isărescu from the beginning of his work as governor.

He participated in the last talks before 1990, when the former communist president was convinced that he had to take Romania out of the International Monetary Fund. “Well, it was more difficult for Romania to restore relations with the International Monetary Fund. We, who were members of the fund since 1972, the only communist country member of the Fund”, recalled Isărescu.

Romania ended 2025 with a budget deficit of 7.7%, meaning a reduction of the budget deficit by around 1.5 percent of GDP in only 5 months, which is not a small amount, says Eugen Rădulescu, the governor's adviser, in an opinion published on Contributors.

“It is no less true that a program aimed at reducing the budget deficit inevitably leads to a moderation of economic growth, as the freezing of certain incomes in nominal terms affects consumption demand. However, this state of affairs is not abnormal, nor does it have lasting effects, as it leads to a simultaneous decrease in the external deficit, which is very desirable. And if the decrease in consumption is compensated by an increase in some investments, which are very necessary anyway, there are good premises for economic growth much healthier”, believes Rădulescu.