Unlike its major opponent, the PNL managed to preserve its prominence after the implementation of universal male suffrage, playing an important role in shaping the institutional framework of Greater Romania during the 1920s.

In domestic matters, the National Liberal party supported the development of the local bourgeoisie, seeking to expand the Romanian industry through government subsidies and a protectionist trade policy.

During his first years in office, Brătianu reinforced and applied old discrimination laws, insisting that Jews were not allowed to settle in the countryside (and relocating those that had done so), while declaring many Jewish urban inhabitants to be vagrants and expelling them from the country.

According to the 1905 Jewish Encyclopedia: "A number of such Jews who proved their Romanian birth were forced across the Danube, and when [the Ottoman Empire] refused to receive them, were thrown into the river and drowned.

Antisemitism continued to be enacted under the leadership of Dimitrie Sturdza, who was resentful of "aliens"[3] (in line with the anti-Jewish policies of his party), and supported blocking non-Romanians from a large number of social positions.

[4] At the beginning of the 20th century, PNL, joined by many former leaders of the Romanian Social Democratic Workers' Party, advocated an extension of the electoral franchise and a limited agrarian reform, though this did not prevent a National Liberal government from violently repressing the 1907 Peasants' revolt.

Adopting a nationalist discourse, before World War I the party championed the cause of ethnic Romanians living outside the borders, primarily those in Austro-Hungarian-ruled Transylvania; its irredentism varied in degree, with a more pragmatic approach being preferred while in government.

The party's stance had a major influence in Romania's decision to join the First World War on the side of the Allies, which ultimately led to Romanian rule over Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania.

Though initially opposed to the restoration of deposed King Carol II, it became increasingly supportive of his authoritarian policies, with PNL governments paving the way to a royal dictatorship in the 1938.