The designated Prime Minister, Siegfried Mureșan, failed to secure the Parliament’s confidence on Wednesday, September 30. He only gathered 182 votes, while 233 were required. President Nicușor Dan now has two options: to call early elections, which he has so far ruled out while the far-right party AUR (Alliance for the Union of Romanians) is leading in the polls, or to appoint a new candidate for the office of Prime Minister from the Social Democratic Party (PSD), most likely Sorin Grindeanu.
- Mureșan, a member of the European Parliament from the PNL and vice-president of the PPE, was appointed following the fall of the Bolojan government after a joint PSD/AUR vote. The two parties together hold 218 seats out of 464 in Parliament.
- They criticized the government for its austerity measures, while Romania’s deficit in 2025 was the highest in the Union (7.9% of GDP). In the absence of a government, Bucharest risks seeing its sovereign rating shift into the speculative (“junk”) category.
- According to party officials, AUR’s objective is to oust Nicușor Dan. The process requires a parliamentary majority vote, followed by a referendum to be held within 30 days.
Since the cancellation, in December 2024, of the first round of the presidential election, Romania has been caught in a double squeeze, with Russia on one side and the United States on the other. The country has thus become a geopolitical laboratory for the state of European political forces.
- Călin Georgescu, placed yesterday, Tuesday September 29, in provisional detention for 30 days in a case of fraud and the formation of an organized criminal group, had won the first round of the vote with 22.94% of the ballots.
- Ignored by most public opinion polls and never polling above 8%, his campaign had been conducted mainly on social media, particularly TikTok.
- He had been arrested in February 2025 following the organization of 47 searches at several of his close associates, while prosecutors accused him of covert Moscow funding. Romania’s Foreign Minister, Emil Hurezeanu, had denounced “a form of interference in the internal elections of another state.”
- The AUR party declared today in Parliament that it would not vote for any government until Călin Georgescu is released.
- Romania is indeed at the forefront of the hybrid warfare that Moscow is waging in Europe: the Spanish Air Force F-18 aircraft, deployed since August at Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base, carried out 15 emergency takeoffs during their first month of mission in Romania.
On the other hand, the United States is pressing to influence the government’s decisions.
- In March, Kimberly Guilfoyle, the American ambassador to Greece and former fiancée of Don Jr., the president’s eldest son, reportedly discussed the impending collapse of the Romanian government during a private dinner, in a conversation with Greece’s Energy Minister, Stavros Papastavrou.
- Before other Greek and American officials, she would have stated: “We can do this to any country of our choosing. We can do it here [in Greece],” suggesting that Washington may have played a role in the government’s downfall a few weeks later, on May 5.
- The Bolojan government is said to have been viewed unfavorably in Washington due to its refusal to purchase American LNG.
In July, the U.S. State Department launched a call for proposals aimed at supporting politically aligned organizations in Europe. The program is designed to fund projects led by NGOs, think tanks, or universities, focusing on freedom of expression, sovereignty, and migrations, with grants of up to $3 million. Its launch is scheduled today, Wednesday, September 30.