BNR Arenas, 26 February 2026. The Oxygen Conferences: "Romania de facto: Realities and Perspectives 2026" laid on the table exactly the questions an economy can no longer afford to sidestep: where Romania draws its funding from, what external vulnerabilities cost, and how much credibility public policy can "buy" before it is forced to earn it through reform.
Against this backdrop, the panel brought together voices with complementary roles: Ștefan Nanu (Director General, State Treasury – Ministry of Finance), Eugen Rădulescu (Adviser to the Governor of the BNR), Florin Andrei (professor, former secretary of state – ASE Bucharest) and Monica Dudian (professor, PhD – ASE Bucharest), with Călin Rangu (Vice President of the CIO Council) as moderator.
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At the heart of the conversation, inevitably, sat the question of funding. Not in the generic sense of "we need money," but in the hard, technical sense: what the mix looks like between the domestic and external markets, between government securities, deposits, investments, European funds and possible privatizations — and how quickly that equation turns into a test of confidence when the global environment shifts. One key takeaway: funding is not merely a treasury issue, but a reputational indicator — the weaker the signal of discipline, the more "educational" the cost of money becomes.
Then came the two deficits that tell the truth without raising their voice: the trade deficit and the current account deficit. When an economy structurally imports more than it exports, and the gap is not covered stably and cheaply, the consequences are predictable: pressure on the exchange rate, greater dependence on volatile capital, and heightened sensitivity to external shocks. This is not a story about "who is to blame" but about arithmetic: if the rest of the world finances you, the rest of the world can also change the terms.
From there, the step toward sovereign risk was a natural one. Not as an abstract rating concept, but as a sum of perceptions: the state's ability to collect its revenues, to control spending, to pursue coherent policies and, above all, to avoid contradicting itself between promise and execution. When these are in tension, the "risk premium" is not a market conspiracy but the price demanded for uncertainty.
One section that lifted the discussion above the accounting level dealt with trade agreements — MERCOSUR and the potential EU–India deal — viewed through the lens of Romania as an EU member state. The implicit message: such agreements are not only about tariffs but about repositioning. For Romania, the opportunity is not automatic; it depends on competitiveness, infrastructure, standards, and the ability of firms to scale and to plug into European value chains. Put differently, agreements can open doors, but they cannot push the goods through them.
On the domestic front, fiscal policy emerged as the main area where "cosmetic adjustments will no longer do." The talk was about the need for reform not only in taxation, but in the way the state functions: administrative reform that reduces waste, increases efficiency and makes budget execution predictable. Here, the discussion was less ideological and more pragmatic: if the revenue base is fragile and expenditures are rigid, fiscal policy turns into a string of emergencies rather than a tool of governance.
The part on banks and the 2008 episode — mentioned as a lesson about tensions in the foreign exchange market and what a moment of vulnerability looks like — brought back to the fore the idea that markets attack, speculate or withdraw precisely where they sense a crack: a shortage of liquidity, incoherent public messaging, a large external deficit, or simply too heavy a dose of "it'll do." In such moments, resilience is not built on statements, but on reserves, mechanisms and credibility built before the crisis.
The closing shifted the center of gravity from finance and funding to Artificial Intelligence. Not as a fashion, but as a practical question: how do you use AI for productivity, better services, faster decisions — in companies, but also in public administration. In the subtext, this was perhaps the most important bridge of the day: if Romania wants to narrow its deficits and improve its risk profile, it needs not just fiscal adjustments but capacity — and capacity, in 2026, is also built with technology, data and processes.
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