Romanian PM Luca Niculescu skips AUR-requested budget deficit debate in Parliament

The request in Parliament

The opposition party AUR asked the Chamber of Deputies to summon Prime Minister Luca Niculescu to the "Prime Minister's Hour" to explain the state of the budget deficit. The Permanent Bureau of the Chamber approved the request on Wednesday, 28 October, but it was still waiting for the government to confirm the prime minister's attendance. Under the rules, the prime minister must take part in a debate he is asked to attend, although he may ask to change the date or postpone it. According to the request, the session was meant to cover budget execution, arrears and outstanding payments, and the real level of the deficit. The Chamber's agenda lists the debate for Monday, 2 November, at 16:00.

“The prime minister is obliged to come before Parliament with figures, measures and precise deadlines, not with new promises.”

The party's deputies added in the same press release that the budget deficit cannot be reduced on paper alone.

Four questions on the deficit

AUR wants four points addressed. The first is the estimated ESA deficit for 2026 and how it reconciles with the cash deficit. The second is a list of measures for 2027-2030, with the impact of each in lei, including the target for 2028. The third asks how the below-3% target of 2.8% of GDP in 2030 would be reached without new taxes or cuts to public investment. The fourth asks why the 2026 cash target of 6.2% of GDP sits above the ESA target of 6.0%, the reverse of 2024-2025, when the ESA deficit exceeded the cash deficit, and which payments from earlier years explain the gap.

2026 cash target6.2%

2026 ESA target6%

2030 target (below 3%)2.8%

2026 cash target

6.2 %

2026 ESA target

6 %

2030 target (below 3%)

2.8 %

Data from the article text

Monday's schedule

Government spokesman Dan Cărbunaru told News.ro that all the necessary steps had been taken to notify Parliament. The schedule published on the government website, however, places the prime minister elsewhere on Monday. At 9:00 he is due at Palace Victoria for a signing ceremony in which the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Moldova becomes a partner in the SAFE project "Multifunctional wheeled vehicle transport platforms". Romanian Defence Minister Ștefan Radu Oprea and his Moldovan counterpart, Anatolie Nosatîi, are set to attend that ceremony. At 16:00, the hour he was due in Parliament, he is scheduled for consultations with the union confederations at the same palace. The ceremony therefore falls in the hours before the session would have started.

Separately, USR asked Finance Minister Alexandru Nazare to come to Parliament on the same deficit question. That request was rejected on the grounds that the Prime Minister's Hour takes priority.