Romania's joining of the fiscal pact, concluded by the European leaders at the summit which was held in Brussels at the end of last week, will have a favorable effect on the economy, and will result in more disciplined macroeconomic policies, Valentin Lazea, chief-economist at the Romanian National Bank (NBR) said on Friday, at the EU-COFILE seminar, hosted in Sinaia by the NBR, the Romanian Banking Association and Alpha Bank.

"One of the decisions which were made yesterday (ed. note: Thursday) concerned the strengthening of fiscal rules, in the sense of drawing the attention of European leaders to the budgets and penalties for countries which exceed the budget deficit and public debt targets. 17 countries and 6 more joined this pact, including Romania, which I think has a favorable effect because it will bring discipline to the macroeconomic policies".

Discussing the second decision made by the European leaders, to have the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) be managed jointly with the European Central Bank (ECB), Valentin Lazea said that this means the ECB can focus more on saving commercial banks and less on saving governments.

"The Fund will be managed by the ECB, but it will be the one to save the countries through bonds purchases", according to him.

Valentin Lazea also said that Romania needs to hope that there will be a "favorable solution" to the problems in the Eurozone, because it is "organically" tied to it from an economic point of view. He hopes there will be more answers provided to the other questions that the financial markets are asking, and Western European politicians will get ahead of the events rather than belatedly react to them like they used to do until now".

As to what concerns the fact that the countries outside the Eurozone, including Romania would have to contribute, through their central banks, 50 bill