Budget for 2025, promulgated

The president signed into law the 2025 state budget and social security budget bills

Mihai Pelin, 11.02.2025, 13:50

The outgoing president Klaus Iohannis signed the decrees promulgating the 2025 state budget and social security budget laws. The two bills had been quickly endorsed last week in the joint plenary meeting of the Romanian parliament. MPs in the opposition—AUR, Save Romania Union, SOS Romania and the Young People’s Party—submitted thousands of amendments, but these were dismissed one by one by the vote of the ruling coalition, comprising the Social Democratic Party, the National Liberal Party and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania.

The opposition claimed that many amendments were rushed away without careful consideration. The budgets of ministries, on the other hand, were adopted as received from the reporting committees, and one of the few amendments to pass concerned an increase in the funding of the health ministry. Another amendment scrapped the approx. EUR 140,000 originally earmarked to the Constitutional Court of Romania for covering medical prescription claims for employees and retired judges.

The draft budget for 2025 was passed by the government on February 1 and is based on a 2.5% economic growth rate and a budget deficit of 7% of GDP. The 2025 budget will enable the country’s development process to continue, PM Marcel Ciolacu said. He emphasised that higher amounts have been earmarked for the health ministry, for motorways and railways, as well as for education, and he dismissed the idea of ​​an austerity budget.

In turn, the finance minister Tanczos Barna described the state budget for 2025 as “modest” and based on a prudent increase in revenues, “without exaggeration.” He claimed that there is “enough money for salaries, pensions and social benefits”.

The budget was criticised not only by the opposition, but also by employers and trade unions, while Fiscal Council experts said that revenues were overestimated.

The 2025 budget was finalised after late last week an IMF delegation completed its talks in Bucharest with the main institutions responsible for Romania’s monetary and fiscal policies. It was not an assessment mission, but only a fact-finding one, and PM Marcel Ciolacu assured the IMF of the government’s determination to comply with the budget deficit target of 7% of the GDP and to implement the reforms undertaken in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

The IMF made public its latest forecasts regarding the Romanian economy last autumn, when it estimated a 7% deficit for the end of 2025, the same as predicted by the Government. The IMF estimates are, however, more optimistic both in terms of the economic growth rate (3.3%, compared to only 2.5% forecast by Bucharest) and inflation (3.6%, below the 4.4% target set by the government). (AMP)