Record Inflation in Romania
Romania remains the country with the highest inflation rate in the European Union.
Corina Cristea, 18.06.2026, 14:00
Amid a period of political uncertainty following the government’s collapse due to a no-confidence vote, Romania is simultaneously grappling with a high budget deficit and rising public debt. Persistent inflation paints a bleak picture, and data released by the relevant institutions indicate that recovery is still a long way off. Data released Wednesday by the EU’s statistical office (Eurostat) show that the annual inflation rate in the EU rose to 3.3% in May, up from 3.2% in April, with Romania ranking first, with an annual price increase of 9.7%, up from 9.5%.
Compared with the previous month, inflation fell in May in 11 member states and rose in 16, including Romania. In addition, the annual inflation rate in the eurozone rose to 3.2% in May, up from 3% in April. This is the highest annual inflation rate since September 2023 and marks the third consecutive month in which price increases in the eurozone have exceeded the ECB’s medium-term target of 2%. This accelerated rise in prices, in line with analysts’ forecasts, is a consequence of the war in the Middle East, which has caused oil and gas prices in Europe to skyrocket over the past three months.
The largest contribution to the annual inflation rate in the eurozone in May came from services (1.61%), followed by energy prices (0.98%) and prices for food, alcohol, and cigarettes (0.36%). In Romania, data previously published by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) show that the annual inflation rate rose to 10.85% in May, from 10.71% in April, as services became 13.53% more expensive, non-food goods 12.54% more expensive, and food prices rose by 6.78%.
Invited in Radio Romania’s studios, Cristian Năsulea, a university professor of international economics, explained how much of this situation is due to the international context and how much is due to the lack of coherent economic decisions at the government level: “At the moment, the external factors that we can blame for the very high inflation rate account for about 2%. We’re talking about fluctuations in the oil market, which have affected fuel prices, passing on additional costs to product prices—where, indeed, we feared that the impact of the war in the Middle East could be disastrous for a Romanian leu already under pressure, for a Romanian economy already strained by all the other factors affecting it. However, in the end, it turns out that the problems related to the tariffs imposed by Donald Trump, the war started by Donald Trump, and the situation in Ukraine do not have such a significant impact on inflation or the Romanian economy, compared to all the other factors—all the harm that is self-inflicted through political decisions made in Romania and that have nothing to do with what is happening in other parts of the world.”
The National Bank has revised its year-end inflation forecast upward, from 3.9% to 5.5%, and expects it to reach 2.9% by the end of 2027. (LS)
