According to EurActiv Romania, between 30,000 and 50,000 protesters took to the centre of Bucharest, while the trade unions said a general strike would be called on 31 May.
Protesters called on the government to apply austerity measures in a differentiated manner, rather than spreading the burden across the entire population - including retired people - without taking account of low incomes.
Under pressure from the IMF, the government promised to slash state wages by 25% and pensions by 15% as part of efforts to secure the release of the next tranche of loans.
The leaders of the protests demanded the resignations of President Traian Basescu and Prime Minister Emil Boc.
In the meantime, Boc called on the country's administrative officials to donate remuneration gained from their membership boards of companies in which the state is a minority stakeholder. The money would go into a solidarity fund, he said, and those who refuse to donate would be dismissed.
Similarity with Greece?
Romanian daily Adevarul writes that the obvious question – is Romania following in the footsteps of bankrupt Greece? – is not easy to answer. Unlike Greece, whose main problem is public debt, Romania has one of the lowest public debts at only 24% of GDP and ranks 24th in the 27-member EU bloc.
Romania's problem, Adevarul continues, is its budget deficit, implying that the country's authorities had overspent.
"As an absolute figure, the public debt is not so worrying, but it should be seen in the context of its prospects of increasing and the macroeconomic situation," financial analyst Laurian Lungu of Macroanalitica is quoted as saying.
By 2012, public debt will have increased to 31-32% of GDP, presuming that the budget deficit evolves as expected. If not, public debt may increase much more dramatically, he warned.
Daniel Daianu, a centre-right EU lawmaker and former finance minister, said that Romania could not be compared to Greece, because the country did not rely as heavily on tourism revenue.
"We have a bigger and more diversified economic potential than Greece. We may have no islands, but we have a chemical industry, we have an automotive sector and an aeronautic one. We don't lack infrastructure and capacity to organise," he said.
Analysts quoted by Reuters say the government may end up bowing to public pressure and softening the planned cuts in a bid to preserve popularity for its shaky parliamentary majority, even though elections are not scheduled until late 2012.
"The ability of the government to deliver substantial cuts by July to meet the IMF's demands is low," BNP Paribas analysts said in a note.
"A failure to meet the performance criteria then and a second postponement of the IMF disbursement could be a significant blow."
Neighbouring Bulgaria, the EU's poorest member, is also trying to impose public spending cuts of about 20% to fill a revenue gap and keep its budget deficit under control.
(EurActiv with EurActiv Romania and Reuters.)
