Veaceslav Ioniţă, an economic policy expert at IDIS Viitorul, expressed this view on his weekly program. The expert noted that, starting in 2020, Moldova's budget deficit has exceeded what is considered normal. The deficit is projected to reach approximately 21 billion lei in 2026, compared to 18 billion lei in 2025. As a percentage of GDP, the budget deficit stood at up to 2% until 2020, 3.4% in 2022, 5.3% in 2023, and is estimated at 5.5% in 2026. The goal of the new budgetary and fiscal policy is to return to the 3% threshold, which, according to the expert, implies an increase in budget revenues of approximately 9.4 billion lei. To achieve this goal, the government, according to the economist, intends to use three tools: revising tax breaks, increasing the tax burden on certain segments and goods, and identifying new sources of revenue, including through the taxation of online commerce. Veaceslav Ioniţă drew attention to the increase in the cost of financing the deficit. Interest payments on government loans rose from approximately 600 million lei per year through 2014 to 5.44 billion lei in 2023, and are projected to reach 6.3 billion lei by 2026, with interest costs on domestic borrowing potentially reaching 4.2 billion lei, compared to 2.5 billion lei in 2025. The expert notes that Moldova's public debt is not particularly high relative to GDP, and the main problem lies in the structure and maturities of the loans. Thus, public debt rose from less than 60 billion lei in 2019 to 98.5 billion lei in 2022, 138.5 billion lei in 2025, and nearly 149.5 billion lei in the first quarter of 2026, and in the second quarter it exceeded 150 billion lei. Ioniţă pointed out that a significant portion of government loans is taken out for very short terms. While developed countries take out long-term loans—10 to 20 years, sometimes 30 or more—in Moldova today, the average loan term is 260 to 270 days. Half of the government's borrowing in the first half of the year must be repaid in the second half of the year. This year, the government is borrowing about 5 billion lei per month, of which about 4.5 billion lei are used to repay old loans. According to the expert, one of the first measures the government should take is to increase its capacity to attract foreign grants. Grants represent non-repayable income and can reduce the need to take out expensive loans. "If we had grants amounting to 3% of GDP today, we wouldn't have to increase the tax burden," Ionita believes. Over the past five years, grants have averaged about 1.5% of GDP; in 2025, they stood at 1.3%, and in the first half of 2026, their annual equivalent fell to approximately 0.6% of GDP. In 2025, the majority of grants received by Moldova came from the European Commission—59%—followed by the German Development Bank—16%—UNDP—12%—the World Bank—8%— UNICEF—2%, and other donors contributed 3%. "We are going through the most dramatic period, when we have virtually no grants, very few cheap external loans, and the emphasis is on domestic loans, which are very expensive," — concluded Veaceslav Ioniţă, emphasizing that reducing the budget deficit cannot be achieved solely through tax increases, and that strengthening public finances must be accompanied by an increase in opportunities to attract external grant funding and external loans on favorable terms. // 28.08.2026 — InfoMarket.