President Nicușor Dan said Tuesday at Cotroceni that Romania has lived through a year of falling living standards, followed by another six months of decline amid political uncertainty. “We lost precious time,” he said, linking the slide to what he called useless political debates and months without a full-powered government.

He framed the press conference around four questions: the fiscal picture and credit-rating agencies; why, in his view, bringing AUR into government would have meant a rapid economic crash; why early elections would have done the same; and why a PNL–USR government without PSD is, he argued, an arithmetic illusion.

On the 2026 budget, Dan cited roughly 730 billion lei in revenue, 860 billion in spending and a deficit near 150 billion — equal, he said, to the entire five-year PNRR envelope. Interest alone on existing debt would be about 60 billion lei a year. Romania, he warned, sits “on the edge” between invest-or-don’t recommendations.

On AUR, the president expressed sympathy for anti-state protesters but ruled the party out of government on market and security grounds: within a week, he claimed, the country rating would have been downgraded. Those are Cotroceni’s political assertions, not courtroom findings or on-the-spot agency rulings.

Snap elections and a PNL–USR majority without PSD would, in the same logic, paths to lost market trust or parliamentary deadlock: “30% is less than 50%,” he summed up. No president, Dan said, can manufacture a majority Parliament does not hold.

He also praised the new government’s first three weeks — a budget revision that kept the envelope and a successful bond issue — as signs markets still trust Romania. The deficit-reduction path remains, in his words, mandatory.

Cotroceni’s message is thus a crisis balance sheet and a political veto of scenarios the president sees as risky for ratings, borrowing costs and alliances. Real outcomes depend on what the government does next, not on the speech alone.

Source consulted: Nicușor Dan: Living standards fell for a year; we lost precious time — AGERPRES