Romanian president gives extensive press conference
Romania has to maintain budget discipline not to see its rating downgraded, says president Nicusor Dan in marathon press conference.
Ştefan Stoica, 11.11.2026, 14:00
Romanian president Nicușor Dan on Tuesday gave a marathon press conference. Many questions were awaiting him, as he is frequently criticised for being slow to react to developments in the public realm. In the first part of the conference, the president spoke about the country’s budgetary and financial situation, as well as the recent political crisis that eventually came to an end after nearly six months of deadlock after the dismissal of the Ilie Bolojan cabinet. The president warned that reducing the budget deficit is mandatory, as Romania cannot afford a downgrade of its sovereign credit rating. He noted that this year’s deficit stands at 150 billion lei, the equivalent of nearly 30 billion euros. He explained that maintaining the established fiscal trajectory is imperative and that any deviation would undermine Romania’s credibility, creating the risk that the country might become unable to service its debts. What would a credit rating downgrade entail? Nicușor Dan:
“What would happen if the rating agencies were to downgrade us, to use the jargon? There are investment funds and pension funds that, according to their internal regulations would be required to withdraw from Romania in that event. This would mean we would have to seek new lenders in their place and the path towards addressing the deficit would become far more aggressive than it is at present.”
This is why the president had ruled out, from the very start, the idea of early elections, which many commentators and politicians thought was as the only way to overcome the deadlock following three failed attempts to appoint a prime minister. In the President’s view, early elections would have led to economic collapse. It was with the same idea in mind, namely of the risk of a credit rating downgrade, that he also rejected the idea of bringing the nationalist-populist party the Alliance for the Union of Romanians into government, which would, furthermore, have created vulnerabilities in both institutional and security terms. At the same time, he made a point of distinguishing between the Alliance for the Union of Romanians and its voters, who he said he had sympathy with.
He was less sympathetic towards his own voters from among the supporters of the National Liberal Party and the Save Romania Union, most of whom are unhappy that he allowed things to lead to the dismissal of the Bolojan government, to the benefit of the Social Democratic Party. A former mathematician, the president invoked the parliamentary arithmetic that works against the two political groups, who helped secure his electoral victory.
The second part of the press conference, dedicated to questions from the media, revealed a hesitant president, particularly when he had to address pressing questions regarding the state of the judiciary, which, according to an extensive journalistic investigation, has been kidnapped by an interest group made up of magistrates and politicians, the issue of corruption and the near-total absence of major legal cases or the murky past, with links to the former political police, of one of the intelligence service chiefs.
Following the President’s criticisms, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians accused him of treating the political choice of millions of Romanians as a threat, saying his repeated critical remarks and attacks against the party further deepen the divisions in Romanian society.
