During late 2021, the PNL broke the alliance with USR PLUS (now simply legally known as USR) and continued under former party president Cîțu a minority government alongside the Hungarian minority-oriented UDMR/RMDSZ (with the support of President Klaus Iohannis), consequently causing the three month-long 2021 Romanian political crisis, until successfully negotiating with their historical nominal adversaries PSD in early November 2021 a grand coalition government between themselves and the UDMR/RMDSZ (known as the National Coalition for Romania or CNR for short), thereby leading to the formation of the Ciucă cabinet led by Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă.

During the early 1990s, the party primarily revolved around the presidencies of Radu Câmpeanu and Mircea Ionescu-Quintus, both former members of the historical PNL and liberal youth leaders during the interwar period as well as during and shortly after World War II.

However, prior to the 1992 general elections, Câmpeanu decided to withdraw the party from the CDR electoral alliance and instead compete as a stand-alone political force.

This had ultimately proven to be an eventual major strategic error for the PNL, as the party did not manage to surpass the needed electoral threshold for parliamentary presence and as such was forced to enter extra-parliamentary opposition for the period 1992–1996.

Furthermore, the presidency was also won by the CDR's common candidate, more specifically Emil Constantinescu, who received endorsement on behalf of all of the alliance's constituent parties (including the PNL political groups therein).

Between 1996 and 2000, because of the lack of political coherence within the parties of the governing CDR coalition and the multiple changes of cabinets that followed throughout this entire period of time, the PNL decided once more to withdraw from the alliance just before the 2000 general election and, consequently, to compete alone instead.

However, a splinter group founded by Dan Amedeo Lăzărescu and led by Decebal Traian Remeș which was called PNL-T (Romanian: PNL Tradițional) decided to remain within CDR 2000 and contest that year's general election by endorsing Mugur Isărescu as presidential candidate.

Therefore, during the mid 2000s (more specifically starting in 2003), the PNL joined forces with the PD in order to form the Justice and Truth Alliance (DA)[34] so as to compete in the 2004 general election as an alternative to the then ruling PSD (formerly PDSR) government.

[45][46] On 27 June 2014, former PNL chairman Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu announced his intention to found a separate liberal party to run for president, stating opposition to the upcoming merger with the PDL.

Furthermore, incumbent party president Ludovic Orban decided to step down as prime minister in early December 2020, letting Nicolae Ciucă acting until the new coalition received the confidence vote in the Parliament after the 2020 legislative elections concluded with concrete, positive results on behalf of a future center-right government.

At the same time, the struggle for power within the PNL between Cîțu and Orban (each one along with their respective teams of supporters) considerably bogged down the pace of reforms applied by the government.

It's that political setup that can handle European Union's recovery plan, our local development, and make use of EU money," after an emergency meeting of the party.

[70][71] All throughout this period of time, the political crisis had severe results in the economy of the country, with the euro rising consistently above the leu, as reported by the National Bank of Romania (BNR) in the beginning of the autumn of 2021.

In addition, the finance department of Bloomberg also noted the record inflation levels which rose to the highest charting positions in the last three years in Romania in early September 2021.

[76] Shortly after the congress, on 27 September, former president Ludovic Orban stated that Cîțu became persona non grata for a huge number of Romanian citizens and that he doesn't understand he will no longer be PM for too long, only with the mercy of PSD.

[77] In the meantime, the PNRR (part of the Next Generation EU package and short for Romanian: Planul Național de Redresare și Reziliență) was signed and adopted in Bucharest on the occasion of Ursula von der Leyen's visit, mandated by the European Commission.

[78] The Romanian PNRR is the 5th Next Generation EU plan adopted by volume of funds and most of the work and successful negotiations on it were carried out by USR PLUS ministers, in particular Cristian Ghinea.

Most opinion polls conducted throughout 2021 registered a significant drop of trust both in Cîțu as PM and in the PNL in the perspective of the next Romanian legislative elections which are most likely going to take place in 2024.

[81] Nevertheless, Cîțu still served as acting/ad interim prime minister until a new government will be validated by vote in the Parliament and then subsequently sworn in (i.e. for at least one week from October 5 until still incumbent President Klaus Iohannis will call for party consultations).

[83] He previously also stated that the PNL would demonstrate gross political immaturity if they will still propose Cîțu as prime minister at subsequent party consultations scheduled to take place at the Cotroceni Palace.

[90][91] In mid-early November 2021, several noteworthy political sources hinted a very probable merger of PMP with PNL sometime in the near future (although previous PMP president Cristian Diaconescu publicly dismissed this scenario on his Facebook page) and even a possible, hypothetical absorption of ALDE afterwards (paradoxically enough, thereby subsequently producing the return of Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu in the party he had previously left in 2014), just after the exclusion of Ludovic Orban from the party on 12 November 2021, who stated that "he is [now] free to build a new political force".

[104] At an extraordinary party congress held on 10 April 2022, Nicolae Ciucă was elected the 11th post-1989 president of the PNL with 1,060 valid votes out of 1,120 total ones (60 were nullified and 159 were abstentions).

Additionally, Ciucă's primary objective as PNL president was to maintain the cohesion of the CNR grand coalition until the end of his term as prime minister which took place in mid June 2023.

Afterwards, the PNL maintained the CNR grand coalition only with PSD, removing UDMR/RMDSZ from government, but retaining the confidence and supply agreement with the political group of the national minorities in the Parliament, thereby still having a solid majority needed for endorsing the incumbent Ciolacu Cabinet.

In terms of external politics, the CNR government led by former prime minister Nicolae Ciucă expressed serious concern over the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War.

[106] Under Ciucă's premiership, Romania experienced democratic backsliding,[107] with The Economist ranking it last in the European Union in the world terms of democracy,[108] even behind Viktor Orbán's Hungary.

The National Liberal Party (PNL) also advocates for conservative initiatives and policies and the state in moral and religious issues, as well as the privatization and denationalization of the economy, a trend which is currently [when?]

[24] In economic regards, it deems significant the fact that taxes must be lowered and that the private sector of the national economy must be expanded and helped by a series of new laws in order to generate more value.

2 Traian Băsescu was the common centre-right candidate that was endorsed by the PNL in 2004 as part of the Justice and Truth Alliance (DA) alongside the now defunct Democratic Party (PD).

2 Subsequently, sought permission to adhere to the European People's Party (EPP) as well as to its affiliated EU Parliament group and had been successfully accepted within it as a full member in the meantime.