Romania will significantly reduce Eurobond issuance to EUR 10 billion in 2026 after it has been one of the biggest emerging market debt issuers in the world in 2025 (EUR 16 billion ytd), debt agency chief Stefan Nanu told Reuters. The government will face higher nominal gross financing needs in 2026, but non-market funding sources are abundant, including Resilience funds, SAFE defence funding, private placements (also used this year), and IFIs, Nanu explained.
While the nominal financing needs will increase in 2026 compared to 2025, they will diminish from 14.1% to 13.5%-14.0% of GDP, according to calculations based on the figures reported by Nanu.
All in all, Romania’s gross financing needs will increase to between RON 275 billion and RON 285 billion (EUR 54 billion to EUR 56 billion) in 2026 from RON 269 billion (under EUR 53 billion) this year.
This year’s gross financing needs estimate was upped this week by RON 10 billion (EUR 2 billion), for pre-financing purposes. Inter alia, this pre-financing will slightly elevate the public debt to GDP ratio at the end of 2025 (by some 0.5 percentage points).
Fiscal consolidation is expected at 0.9-1.4% of GDP in 2026, following a fiscal gap of 8.4% of GDP in 2025. This has resulted in RON 28 billion to EUR 38 billion lighter borrowing needs in 2026 compared to 2025. But the significantly higher volume of debt to be rolled over in 2026, namely RON 150 billion compared to RON 99 billion in 2025, generates some RON 50 billion supplementary financing needs.
“We are mindful about the 2026 refinancing risk caused by challenging market conditions in the first part of this year when we had to issue short-term maturities quite significantly,” Nanu told Reuters. “Therefore, this partial pre-financing, as well as liability management we did this year via domestic switches and Eurobond tenders, will ensure gross issuance next year gets closer to this year’s.”
The debt agency lifted this year’s funding target by RON 10 billion to RON 269 billion this week to pre-fund early 2026 needs. It also switched maturing Eurobonds in October, which has lowered next year’s external debt redemptions to EUR 3.5 billion from EUR 4.25 billion initially.
Romania plans to use an array of non-market funding sources next year to significantly reduce gross Eurobond issuance to EUR 10 billion.
Non-market funding includes securing EUR 6 billion worth of EU recovery and resilience funds as well as tapping the new defence funding mechanism SAFE.
Romania also plans to get EUR 1.5 billion from international lenders such as the World Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, as well as EUR 3 billion in mostly loan-format private placements with “some structures already in advanced discussions,” Nanu said.
The broad coalition government has raised some taxes and has begun cutting state spending, but with more measures needed to be approved, a budget plan for 2026 could be delayed.
“Several private placements planned for January and 2026’s first Eurobond will depend on the adoption of next year’s budget, which could be delayed through January,” Stefan Nanu said.
iulian@romania-insider.com
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