Romania’s fourth attempt in five months to form a government moved closer to success after the Social Democrats said they would join the cabinet of prime minister-designate Luca Niculescu, ahead of a confidence vote in parliament.
Romania is moving closer to ending a political crisis after its largest party, the Social Democrats, said on Thursday, 15 October, that it would join the government of prime minister-designate Luca Niculescu, according to a MarketScreener report. Other pro-European parties have pledged their votes without joining the cabinet, and the nominee needs 233 votes in parliament to win the confidence vote.
Niculescu is 55, a diplomat, a former journalist and the interim deputy foreign minister, according to the report. The Social Democrats will take 11 ministries, and technocrats will fill the finance, energy and foreign affairs posts. The government is to present its programme to parliament before the vote, and the report says that the Social Democrats will assess the cabinet after six months.
The nomination is the fourth attempt by President Nicusor Dan to install a government in five months, according to the report. The previous four-party government collapsed in May, when the Social Democrats quit and aligned themselves with the far-right opposition. Since then the country has had a series of nominations that did not produce a lasting majority, a pattern that the report describes as a crisis.
The crisis has had financial effects. The Romanian leu hit record lows, debt yields surged and the country narrowly avoided a downgrade of its investment-grade credit rating, the report says. Ratings agencies stress that the approval of a 2027 budget that cuts the largest deficit in the European Union is critical, and the political crisis has pressured the rating.
The budget figures show the size of the task. Romania must reduce its deficit below 3% of gross domestic product by 2030, down from more than 9% in 2024 and an expected 6.2% in 2026, according to the report. That is a reduction of more than six percentage points in six years from the 2024 level, which is Delima News’ own calculation, and it requires either spending cuts or higher revenue.
The Social Democrats have set a condition. They want a 2027 budget plan by 1 December with no additional tax increases, the report says. That demand narrows the choices of the new government, because a plan that cuts the deficit without raising taxes would rely on spending cuts, and the sources reviewed do not say which cuts are proposed.
The structure of the coalition is unusual. The largest party joins the cabinet with 11 ministers, but other parties support the government in votes without taking posts, which means that the government’s majority depends on several parties that are not part of it. The report does not name the other parties, so they cannot be listed here.
If the confidence vote succeeds, it would end a period without a stable government, which the sources link to financial stress. If it fails, the president would face a fifth attempt, though the sources reviewed do not say what the constitutional options would be, so that is not discussed.
The next steps are the presentation of the government to parliament and the vote itself. Delima News will report the outcome when it is announced.
Image: The Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest (file photo). Photo: William John Gauthier from Denmark / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
