May 17, 2026 UPDATE
A roundup of local and world news
Newsroom, 17.05.2026, 19:54
RATING Romania keeps its investment-recommended rating and authorities consider the decision a major vote of confidence for the economy. The country’s interim Finance Minister, Alexandru Nazare, says that the latest Standard & Poor’s rating confirms the fiscal consolidation measures implemented so far, against a difficult political and economic context adding that the budget discipline and reform must continue. The financial rating agency cautions that it might downgrade Romania’s rating if the present government crisis continues. According to the institution, such a situation might reduce the country’s chances to curb its budget deficit by 2027. The agency says that delays in attracting European funds in the next two years could impact the economic growth and hinder fiscal consolidation, at the same time increasing the risks related to the balance of payments. Standard & Poor’s has also cautioned against some foreign pressure such as a protracted energy crisis against the background of the Middle East situation. These developments might negatively impact the medium-term inflation in Romania, the agency also says. On the other hand it says the rating outlook could be upgraded from negative to stable if the fiscal and foreign deficits are significantly reduced and the economy recovers.
DRILL A contingent of Romanian servicemen is participating in a joint military exercise entitled “NATO – Serbia 26” held at the military training base Borovac in Serbia. The drill brings together roughly six hundred troops from Serbia’s Armed Forces and three other NATO members: Romania, Italy and Turkey as well as observers from France, Germany, Italy, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkiye, the UK and the United States of America. ‘NATO Serbia 26’ is the first exercise of this kind staged in Serbia and is part of the long-term partnership that has been developed since 2006, when Serbia joined the “NATO Partnership for Peace.”
TALKS Romania’s President, Nicusor Dan, is expected to kick off a new round of talks with representatives of Parliamentarian parties on Monday in an attempt to appoint a new Prime Minister. The PSD representatives, who are the first to be received by the president, will be followed by those from AUR, PNL, USR, UDMR, the group of the national minorities, SOS and POT. The president has already announced he will designate a new Prime Minister only when he is proposed in a formula enjoying Parliament support. President Dan says he doesn’t want a government that might cause another political crisis and for this reason a question for the parties involved in this round of talks will be ‘which is the majority proposed to forge an Executive?’ We recall the minority government PNL-USR-UDMR headed by the Liberal Ilie Bolojan was sacked on May 5th through a no confidence vote filed by the former ruling partners PSD, whose initiative also got endorsed by the populists from AUR, an ultranationalist, self-proclaimed sovereignist party.
VIENNA After an absence of four years, Romania ranks third in the Eurovision Song Contest, with a tune entitled Choke Me, by Alexandra Capitanescu. Experts have described the 22 year old artist’s performance as being characterized by force, tension and attitude. Alexandra has thus equaled the performance obtained by Luminita Anghel and Sistem in 2005 and Paula Seling and Ovi in 2010. Romania had initially been first in the ranking before the voting started, but was eventually outperformed by Israel and Bulgaria, which won the contest after an absence of three years, due to economic constraints. Bulgaria’s representative was Dara, who performed a song entitled ‘Bangaranga’. According to the press, the composer of the winning song is Cristian Tarcea of Romania, an artist with the stage name ‘Monoir’ and who is very popular in the ‘dance pop’ area of Eastern Europe.
OIF Four candidates are running for the seat of the secretary general of the Organisation International de la Francophonie, the International Organization of Francophony, whose elections are due in Cambodia in November. Among the candidates there is also the former European Commissioner from Romania, Dacian Ciolos. The organisation, headquartered in Paris, has brought together 90 countries and its secretary general is designated every four years by the heads of state and government. With 396 million speakers, French is the fourth most spoken language in the world after English, Mandarin and Spanish. Two thirds of the francophones are living in sub-Saharan Africa and Maghreb, shows the latest data released by the French Language Observer.
CURS Most of the Romanians believe that snap elections are needed and if Parliamentary election were held next Sunday, AUR would take most of the votes 32%, followed by the PSD with 24%, PNL with 20%, USR with 10%, UDMR with 5%, PNRR-Piedone 4% and SOS Romania 3%, says a CURS survey conducted over May 1 and 14 and released on Sunday. 56% of the respondents believe that Romania needs snap election, whereas 41% are opposing such an idea. Those conducting the survey believe the result is indicative of a major public pressure for changing the present political configuration. The survey was conducted on 1664 respondent adults and has an error margin of +/- 2.4% and a level of trust of 95%.
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