Romania is poised to break a months-long political impasse and get a new government that will be under pressure to retain investor confidence and avert a renewed economic crisis.

Prime Minister-designate Luca Niculescu is widely expected to win Tuesday’s parliamentary vote of confidence in his proposed cabinet. He will face the daunting task of reducing one of the European Union’s widest deficits and restarting economic growth.

A diplomat with no political affiliation, Niculescu will have to rely on a fragile pact between feuding parties, negotiating support for key bills — including the 2027 state budget — on a case-by-case basis.

The stakes are high for Tuesday’s vote. The new prime minister will have to convince ratings agencies that he will continue on the path of fiscal discipline as Romania teeters on the verge of losing its investment-grade status.

The failure to install a new government in Bucharest is not for lack of trying. Niculescu is the fourth premier that President Nicusor Dan has nominated since May. That political deadlock has pushed Romania’s currency to a record low and contributed to economic stagnation.

In his governing program, Niculescu committed to stick to the plan agreed with Brussels to bring the deficit down to below 3% of economic output by 2030, mostly via measures to reduce tax fraud and improve revenue collection.

He laid out the scale of the challenge he’s facing in stark terms. Romania’s gross domestic product contracted by 0.6% in the first half of the year, debt exceeds 60% of GDP, interest rates are rising and the rating outlook is negative, Niculescu said in the program.

“Consolidation must continue, but with an emphasis on economic growth,” he said. “Without growth, no deficit target is sustainable; without fiscal discipline, no growth is sustainable.”His cabinet will be made up of technocrats and ministers from the Social Democrats, the largest party in parliament. Once a member of Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan’s pro-European ruling coalition, the Social Democrats allied with the opposition far-right in May to topple that alliance.

Other former governing parties such as the Liberals have said they’ll help vote in Niculescu’s government to bring an end to the crisis. But as they blame that crisis on the Social Democrats, they’ve ruled out any formal cooperation with a cabinet that includes them, insteadg bilateral deals with Niculescu himself.

In the unlikely case that Niculescu fails to secure a majority in parliament, Dan may be forced to call a snap ballot, an option he’s tried to avoid. Polls show that a general election would be won by the far-right, the main beneficiary of Romania’s deep anti-establishment mood.

“The new governing arrangement remains fragile in the medium term, as it does not benefit from a formal parliamentary majority,” said Nicolae Covrig, a Bucharest-based economist at Raiffeisen Bank SA.

That limits the scope for Niculescu to pass further spending cuts and difficult reforms. Financial markets are closely watching any signs of potential fiscal slippages, especially as the Social Democrats toppled Bolojan’s government because of his austerity-driven agenda.

Romania’s yield on the 10-year domestic government bond dropped about half a percentage point from last month’s peak of over 7.6%, although the country’s borrowing costs remain the highest in the EU, as is its inflation. Foreign debt securities and have also rebounded.