Following the fall of the regime at the end of that year, he was awarded important posts and honors as an elder statesman of the National Salvation Front (FSN), and as part of its council belonged to a group who had fallen foul of Ceauşescu. Among the positions he held was the Senate Presidency, from June 1990 to October 1992, having been elected in May for a Bucharest seat. While in this office, he spoke in January 1991 in commemoration of Bucharest pogrom and several months later delivered a message for the 50th anniversary of the Iaşi pogrom, in spite of a widespread climate of anti-Semitism at the time. That year also saw open conflict between him and Prime Minister Petre Roman and the latter's ally Adrian Severin over the speed of price liberalization and economic privatization, with Bârlădeanu, at the forefront of the FSN's more cautious wing, unsuccessfully pushing for a slower pace. Additionally, in 1990–1991, he was co-president of the committee charged with writing a new constitution, and was for a time honorary director of the FSN's newspaper "Azi". In 1991, he quit (or was removed from) the FSN and withdrew from politics altogether in 1993. In 1995, eulogizing Corneliu Coposu, he publicly declared that, although the two men belonged to the same generation, it was the latter who had chosen the right path. He died in Bucharest in 1997.