Romania starts 2027 budget work as 49 of 56 institutions submit spending limits

Budget work starts in Government

Romania's government began preparing the 2027 state budget at its Thursday, 5 November, meeting, Finance Minister Alexandru Nazare said. The exercise is taking place under pressure to reduce the budget deficit. At that session, Nazare presented a note on how ministries and other institutions are entering their data into eBuget NG, an information system built with funds from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). The system will be used to draw up the 2027 budget and the estimates for 2028 to 2030, and it is meant to weigh institutions' requests against commitments already made and the resources available. Nazare explained the purpose of the platform in these words.

“Digitalising the budget must mean better justification of decisions and a higher level of commitment.”

Submissions and outstanding deadlines

By 4 November, 49 of the 56 principal credit administrators financed fully from the state budget had sent their spending limit proposals to the Finance Ministry. Data on investments, European funds, personnel costs and budget programmes is still being completed, and Nazare said some institutions are advanced while others must catch up. He set Monday, 9 November, as the deadline for the outstanding proposals and Wednesday, 11 November, for checking and completing the data across all funding sources and required components.

Submitted proposals49

Total principal credit administrators56

Submitted proposals

49 institutions

Total principal credit administrators

56 institutions

Data from the article text

Speaking at the AGRI4FUTURE national conference organised by the Romanian Farmers' Club, Nazare said he had made an inventory of the situation and presented it to the prime minister and other ministers. Some ministries had only partly loaded their data, and others planned to change entries they had already made. He said the ministries would be given until the following week to finish.

“Some ministries have not yet entered the platform. Some ministries have uploaded data, but only partially.”

Projects that may lose funding

Nazare said the projects and programmes that will not be financed from 2027 must be identified together with the Finance Ministry during the same stage. He stressed that the amounts ministries request do not automatically become approved funding. Final spending limits will be proposed on the basis of the collected data and revenue estimates, and then approved by the Government.

“Requests entered in the platform do not automatically represent approved allocations.”

On Monday, 2 November, the ministry sent all principal credit administrators a letter asking which institutional mergers, savings and investment priorities they were considering. Nazare said the letter covers mergers and priorities, but in essence it is about savings.

Deficit reduction and the rating outlook

Nazare said the 2027 budget must be built from what the state can "realistically finance", while respecting the path for reducing the deficit. He argued that the stakes go beyond dividing sums among institutions. A credible 2027 budget, together with the results of budget execution in 2026, is expected to feature in rating agency assessments scheduled for early next year. He said that keeping fiscal discipline and honouring commitments could later create conditions to move Romania's rating outlook from negative to stable, but warned that this is not guaranteed and depends on concrete policy results.

Next steps

Nazare said that from 11 November the ministry will begin concrete work on the projects of all ministries. The first stage covers estimating revenues and setting budget spending limits. Those limits will go to the Government for approval after the data has been checked.