Romania leu, stocks down as new government fiscal plans unveiled

A plan by Romania's ruling Social Democrat-led government to overhaul the taxation system and eliminate mandatory private pension plans dragged the leu down 0.5 percent and the Bucharest's blue chip down 2.6 percent on Thursday.

"With all these, economic collapse is near," said one trader with a foreign bank in Bucharest.

Romania's ruling Social Democrats unveiled plans on Thursday to overhaul taxation from 2018, ditching a flat 16 percent tax on income and profit that has attracted investment into the European Union's fastest-growing but least-developed economy.