The Finance Ministry took the nine-month outturn into the 16 October cabinet meeting. The general government deficit: 78.52 billion lei, 3.82% of GDP. Last year, the same period: 102.47 billion, 5.35%. The fall: 1.53 percentage points, 23.95 billion lei in cash terms, according to Forbes. Logos Press, in Chișinău, repeated the figures. The lead is Moldova. The note is from Bucharest. The data are operational. They are not the 12-month budget law.

Revenue, 522.07 billion, up 11.8% year on year. As a share of GDP: from 24.4% to 25.4%. Spending, 600.59 billion, up 5.5% in cash terms. As a share of GDP: from 29.7% to 29.2%. Revenue rose faster than spending. That is the ministry’s arithmetic. It is not a surplus. 78 billion remains on the minus side.

Staff costs: 122.14 billion, 4.54 billion below 2025. The ministry ties the cut to bonuses and to a cap on public wages. Goods and services: 77.34 billion, up 8.9%, mainly health, in Mediafax. Interest: 50.63 billion, up 10.69 billion, 2.5% of GDP. Social assistance: 187.93 billion, almost flat. Anyone who reads only staff costs sees a cut. Anyone who reads interest sees the cost of debt. Both sit in the same outturn.

Investment: 107.77 billion, against 82.62. Up 25.17 billion. The ministry: 70.68% of payments, non-reimbursable external funds, including the NRRP. By 14 October, ministries: 76.57 billion on EU funds and the NRRP, 64.6% of the updated credits. Of which the NRRP, 44.63 billion. That is domestic payment. It is not a certificate from Brussels. The 6.43 billion still due on the NRRP is another story, from the same note. Here the deficit remains.

Alexandru Nazare, interim finance minister, in Forbes: public investment rose by more than 25 billion. The deficit cut, to be continued in 2027. The 2026 target, 6.2% of GDP. 3.82% at nine months is not 6.2% at twelve. The ministry does not say, in the texts consulted, that the target is already met. It says revenue rose by a point of GDP, spending fell by half a point. Success, in Nazare’s note: not the billions announced, but what was built.

Until the full-year outturn, what remains is 3.82% and a rising interest bill. After the year, what remains is whether 6.2% is a target or a floor. Between them, a cabinet note and a Chișinău paper that copied Bucharest.

Image: Diego Delso, CEC Palace, Bucharest, 29 May 2016, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The photograph is of the CEC Palace, not the Finance Ministry.

Sources consulted: The Finance Ministry presented a note on the budget outturn in the cabinet meeting — MF; Finance Ministry: Budget deficit fell to 3.82% of GDP after the first nine months of 2026 — Mediafax.