Romania will pay around 60 billion lei in 2026 in interest on the public debt alone, a sum equivalent to the entire investment programme of local authorities for five years, which significantly limits the budgetary space for new spending, Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan said on Sunday.
„This year alone the interest included in the budget amounts to around 60 billion lei (…) Any proposal for additional spending is not covered out of thin air. If we do not have revenues for it, we cover it through borrowing,” Bolojan said on Digi24 TV.
Referring to amendments, Bolojan said the budget had been drafted before the start of the war in the Middle East, which has generated unavoidable effects such as rising fuel prices, higher interest rates and increased inflation.
„Amendments will certainly be submitted in Parliament, because every year political parties and parliamentary groups submit amendments and each time a good part of them pass, so an additional bill is always added during parliamentary debates. Now, our problem is that this budget was drafted in a period when we did not have a war in the Middle East and, because of this war, we now have certain effects that we cannot avoid, meaning higher fuel prices, higher interest rates, turbulence on the interest rate market, which may lead to inflation rising above the estimated level, perhaps by half a percentage point, perhaps by one percentage point, depending on how long this lasts. There may also be certain turbulence regarding borrowing data, the interest rates at which Romania borrows, for example, which means additional costs if things do not calm down within a reasonable period. This means that any proposal for additional spending must be treated with caution, because the outlook data taken into account may be influenced by these new realities that have appeared on the market over the past two weeks,” Ilie Bolojan explained.
According to him, if the amendments that pass are of greater value, „this means additional costs that this country will also have to pay.”
AGERPRES
