Grindeanu demands energy price plan, warns Dacia and Ford could leave Romania

Energy prices and industry

Sorin Grindeanu, the PSD leader who also heads the Chamber of Deputies according to Ziare.com, asked Energy Minister Dumitru Chisăliță to present an urgent plan on energy prices. Speaking on Antena 3 CNN on Wednesday evening, 11 November 2026, he said Romania probably has the highest energy price in the EU and that he hoped to be contradicted. He named the carmakers Dacia and Ford as firms that could leave the country if high energy costs pushed them out. He put the stakes in direct terms:

“I do not want us to have on our conscience that Dacia or Ford leave because of this high energy price.”

Grindeanu also said Natalia Intotero had told him she was close to securing a large energy investment, and he said he wanted to congratulate her. Digi24 wrote that the project was most likely the Greek company HELLENiQ Renewables, which plans to invest 1.3 billion euros in renewable energy in Romania by 2030. Grindeanu did not name the company himself, so that link remains a media assessment.

Taxes, debts and pensions

Grindeanu told business owners that taxes will not rise next year, presenting this as a pact with the business community meant to restore investor confidence in Romania. He said the state should pay what it owes to companies within 90 days and that VAT should be refunded to firms with low fiscal risk. He also argued for cutting labour taxation and removing CASS contributions for mothers, vulnerable categories, veterans and war invalids. On pensions, he said indexation must follow the law and is not up for negotiation, but he gave neither a date nor a percentage. Asked whether indexation would be 7%, he said the budget and macro data would settle the question:

“Let us index pensions according to the law, because that is not negotiable, and we have nothing to negotiate.”

Government reply and the IMF question

Siegfried Mureșan, a PNL member of the European Parliament and a former nominee for prime minister, attacked Grindeanu on social media. He wrote that Grindeanu, whom he called the de facto prime minister, leads an 'Apologies and Regrets' government that offers apologies in place of solutions. Mureșan dismissed Grindeanu's regret that the censure motion was filed too late and claimed the motion aimed to remove Ilie Bolojan rather than to give PSD the premiership. Grindeanu said he did not believe Romania would again need IMF help, though he could not exclude it 100%. He was responding to a warning from President Nicușor Dan that Romania risked IMF intervention if it failed to meet its deficit commitments. He argued that the deficit could also be reduced through economic growth, and said Finance Ministry data expected in the week of 16 November 2026 would show the picture.

Public-private partnerships and recovery plan

On Monday, 9 November 2026, Grindeanu said he had asked the transport and health ministers to present mature projects for public-private partnerships. The Finance Ministry has a specialised directorate that will process the projects, and the two ministers are to send the documentation quickly.

Grindeanu outlined three priorities: state reform, including administrative and state-company restructuring, economic relaunch, and the gradual restoration of purchasing power. He asked Prime Minister Luca Niculescu to speed up an economic recovery plan that he said had been under discussion for more than a year without being put into practice. He also asked Finance Minister to accelerate that plan, describing the effort to push it through against the former government as a hand-to-hand fight.