President Nicusor Dan said on Wednesday that „Romania has a deficit that is not sustainable” and guaranteed seriousness for Romanians and the financial environment.

„What I want to convey to Romanians and especially to the financial environment is that we are serious. That is, we are aware of the fact that Romania has a deficit that is not sustainable at the moment and that we are serious both about narrowing the deficit both in the relationship with the European Commission and in the relationship with the financial environment, with investors,” said the head of state in his first news conference since taking office.

He added that last week a working group was set up to analyse the deficit, and a first draft of proposals will be submitted on Thursday, following political talks.

„On Thursday a list of measures with the budgetary impact of each one will come out and a political decision will be taken immediately. At this moment we cannot say that we have agreed on anything,” the president added.

„If you want an analogy with pizza – for years we have been paying for an average pizza and eating a big pizza, that’s about the analogy and of course this difference has to be paid by someone.”

Dan added that in recent years receipts have increased in relation to the Gross Domestic Product, but outlays have increased much more than Romania could afford.

„State spending has increased much too much compared to the percentage of GDP and now we have to adjust.”.

At the same time, the president called for quick measures.

„We cannot afford experiments, we cannot afford early elections, we must work with Parliament as it was voted by the Romanians.”

Dan also detailed the stages of the evaluations.

„In the discussions I had with party leaders absolutely all of them agreed that it is no longer working as it did. That is, we have to make those restructurings of the state apparatus that are normal, that we must reduce the perks of the people who are in different boards of directors, that we have to cut all kinds of sinecures. The problem is that we have to merge a lot of bodies (…) the problem is that we need at least six months for many of these technical things to be achieved. We cannot now, in 30 days, merge several bodies. A little analysis is needed. We want to come up with a set of measures by June 30, including a package of legislation that will give the guarantee to the financial environment that we are serious and that we narrow the deficit, so that in the upcoming period the government to be formed will come up with adjustments to the state apparatus to b applied from January 1, 2026,” said Dan.

AGERPRES