UDMR senator rejects PSD-AUR cohabitation, says no hole in budget

A changing world and a UDMR president

Tánczos Barna, a UDMR senator, told Digi24's programme In fața ta, broadcast on Saturday, 7 November, that the world is changing so fast that he now hopes UDMR could one day give Romania its president. Asked whether it was more likely that Elon Musk would reach Mars or that UDMR would provide the Romanian president, he chose the second and said it would happen sooner. He admitted he sometimes has to revise his position, recalling that he had once said pigs would fly before UDMR produced a president. He linked the Republicans' defeat in the US midterm elections to voters focusing on living standards and how they feel political decisions. Asked whether the MAGA movement was finished, he said he thought so.

He put his optimism this way:

“I think we will give Romania its president sooner than Elon Musk reaches Mars.”

No hole in the budget

PSD leader Sorin Grindeanu accused the Bolojan government of leaving debts above 30 billion lei and the largest deficit in the European Union. Barna told Digi24 that the Social Democrats should not exaggerate, since every outgoing government has left current unpaid invoices and outstanding sick-leave payments. He said Romania has never refunded VAT on time, and that the tax agency ANAF struggles to shorten refund periods because many claims must be checked for fraud or suspected fraud. In his view PSD found nothing beyond what it left behind when it voted the current budget together with UDMR, and every government needs budget rectifications each year to correct figures that were not estimated perfectly. Asked why the Social Democrats make such claims, he said they reflect the habit of blaming a difficult inheritance when taking over government.

Cohabitation with AUR

Barna said UDMR voted for the Niculescu government so as not to push the Social Democrats into the arms of AUR. He credited a proposal by Kelemen Hunor for an agreement with the prime minister, rather than between parties, with making support from PNL possible. According to the Digi24 framing, the government needs a parliamentary majority to pass the state budget for 2027. He put the core of his position this way:

“I sincerely hope we do not end up in cohabitation with AUR.”

He said he was convinced that few PSD colleagues want to work with AUR. He concluded with this warning:

“Any growth and consolidation of AUR automatically means a decline in democracy in Romania.”

Cost of public debt

Barna warned that debt financing costs amount to roughly 60-70 billion lei a year and that the burden will rise in 2027 compared with 2026 before it begins to fall. He said debt is not a serious problem in itself if its cost stays small relative to total spending, but the cost of financing keeps increasing and Romania must borrow to roll over existing debt. Asked whether Romania was borrowing at junk-level rates, he rejected that description while saying the country sits at the limit, a point he said rating agencies also make. He distinguished borrowing for investment, which he called no catastrophe, from borrowing to cover the deficit and current spending.

Lower end of estimate60

Upper end of estimate70

Lower end of estimate

60 billion lei per year

Upper end of estimate

70 billion lei per year

Data from the article text