Five and a half months after the fall of Ilie Bolojan’s government, ousted by a no-confidence motion on May 5, Romania today, Tuesday, October 20, has formed a new government.
Luca Niculescu, the prime minister-designate on October 5 by President Nicușor Dan, secured 280 votes, according to Digi24, 47 more than the 233 required.
- Niculescu, former Romanian ambassador to Paris, is the fourth prime minister designated by Dan since May, after Eugen Tomac, Adrian Veștea and Siegfried Mureșan.
- The latter, from the PNL and a vice-president of the PPE, had been designated after two unsuccessful attempts in the wake of Bolojan’s government, toppled by a PSD/AUR joint vote.
- He failed at the end of September to secure the Parliament’s confidence, gathering only 182 votes, 51 fewer than the 233 required.
Neither the PNL nor the UDMR will join the government, but both parties had announced they would vote in favor of Niculescu’s investiture. The AUR, USR and SOS Romania, which hold 92, 58 and 13 seats in Parliament respectively, had said they would not support him.
- Bolojan, who had served as the country’s interim president following Klaus Iohannis’s resignation in February 2025, and who sits in the Senate as a member of the PNL, of which he is the president, justified his party’s backing by a “vote of necessity.”
- He criticized the PSD and the AUR for having toppled “irresponsibly” his government, without proposing a “viable solution” as a replacement.
The Niculescu government will have to face a degraded budgetary situation as well as the growing threat posed by Vladimir Putin’s Russia to the country’s sovereignty and security.
- Romania is the Union’s country with the largest public deficit (7.9% of GDP in 2025).
- In his program, Niculescu pledged to bring it below 3% of GDP by 2030, through spending restraint, anti-fraud measures, and improved revenue collection.
- His government is mainly composed of ministers from the PSD.
The country is also on the front line in facing Russian threats, which are becoming more numerous: seven merchant ships have been attacked off the coast of Romania and Bulgaria since the start of the month. On Saturday, October 17, two F-16s that had taken off from the Borcea base shot down two Geran-type attack drones used by the Russian army.