Budget deficit inflames coalition: Ciolacu and Grindeanu accuse "accounting fraud”

The budget deficit has become a new front for confrontation within the governing coalition, after PSD leaders launched extremely harsh attacks on Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan. Former Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu accuses the current head of the Executive of imposing austerity measures with no real effect on public finances, while PSD President Sorin Grindeanu claims that Romania was the victim of a "fraud” regarding the real size of the deficit.

• Ciolacu: "You sacrificed people and manipulated the figures”

Marcel Ciolacu, currently president of the Buzău County Council, launched a virulent attack on social media against Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, accusing him of "cutting money for pregnant women and pensioners for nothing” and of "aberrantly increasing taxes”, without these measures leading to a real reduction in the budget deficit. "There is no real reduction in the deficit as a result of the "reforms' you made”, Ciolacu said in a post published on Facebook. According to him, the Government resorted to "an accounting trick”, moving investment expenses made in the first part of 2025 from loans from the PNRR to grants, which were later recorded as income.

Ciolacu claims that approximately 0.6% of GDP was thus "moved” to the budget in December, which would have artificially created the impression of an improvement in the financial situation. In the opinion of the former prime minister, tax increases - including the increase in VAT and excise duties - and austerity measures "placed on the backs of poor Romanians and the middle class" did not have the expected effect.

• Accusations of lies and betrayal within the coalition

In an extremely harsh tone, Marcel Ciolacu accused Ilie Bolojan of lying to both Romanians and his governing partners, since the fall of last year.

"You premeditated everything and started this operation since September, while you were asking Romanians for sacrifices," Ciolacu claimed, stating that the prime minister had misled the press, the business community and even members of the coalition, including during the budget adjustments. According to the former PSD leader, Ilie Bolojan's mandate would translate into a declining economy, inflation reaching 10% and "the most dramatic drop in the purchasing power of salaries and pensions in the last 25 years".

• Grindeanu: "The real deficit is around 8%"

For his part, PSD president Sorin Grindeanu claimed that Romania was the victim of a "more elaborate scam" regarding the budget deficit. He stated that the real deficit would be around 8% of GDP, below the previously negotiated 8.4%. "Apart from the increase in VAT from 19% to 21%, nothing extraordinary has happened. Budget revenues are similar", Grindeanu declared on a TV station. The PSD leader announced that the party is in the process of an internal evaluation and that, after the presentation of the final data on the budget execution for 2025, clear proposals will be formulated for the future budget, especially in the area of social measures.

• Tensions on the 2026 budget and the PSD red line

Sorin Grindeanu stressed that the PSD will no longer accept, within the coalition, exclusively right-wing policies that hit the party's electorate. He indicated as priorities the recalibration of pensions, given the decrease in purchasing power in 2025, and the return to the elimination of allowances for mothers. "We are a social-democratic party and things cannot continue this way," Grindeanu warned, suggesting that the 2026 budget could become a new major point of conflict within the coalition.