The pro-European coalition government includes Ciolacu’s Social Democrats, center-right Liberals and the ethnic Hungarian Party UDMR. Including minority representatives, the coalition controls about 54% of seats in the legislature.
Three ultranationalist and hard-right parties won roughly 35% of seats in the new legislature in the December 1 parliamentary ballot. Support for mainstream parties was weakened by multiple crises, including the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine. Voters were also angered by political infighting and accusations of corruption.
The new cabinet was approved with 240 in favor and 143 against. Mainstream politicians said they understood voters’ concerns and desire for change, but the new cabinet includes Ciolacu and many of the former ministers.
The Social Democrat Party (PSD) will hold eight cabinet posts, including justice, transport, labor and defense, and most of its current ministers will stay in their posts.
The centrist Liberal Party (PNL) will have six cabinet jobs, including energy and interior and foreign ministries. The ethnic Hungarian party UDMR will have two posts, including finance.
The new government will need to approve a calendar for a new two-round presidential election. The three parties in the coalition agreed to back a single presidential candidate to prevent the far right from winning. Their candidate at the moment is Crin Antonescu, a former Liberal Party leader.
“The government’s priority is to restore social and economic equity based on respect,” Ciolacu told lawmakers.
“We will have an economically difficult year. This government must be one of reforms and investment.
Challenges ahead
Romania’s new cabinet will also have the daunting task of lowering the budget deficit from an expected 8.6% of economic output this year—the EU’s largest—to around 7% in 2025 and rating agencies and analysts expect tax hikes.
“The new government’s majority is very slim and [...] chances the government will last the full four-year term are minimal,” said Sergiu Mișcoiu, a political science professor at Babeș-Bolyai University, adding: “The first test will be the 2025 budget.”
Kamil Całus, a senior research fellow at Warsaw’s Centre for Eastern Studies, said one of the new government’s priorities will be to create a ‘cordon sanitaire’ to sideline far-right and populist parties that garnered over 30% of the vote in the election.
Całus said the parliamentary election and a later presidential ballot that saw a shock win by a pro-Moscow candidate, had presented the country with a “a clear call for change coming from Romanian society.”
Jakub Bielamowicz, an analyst at Institute of New Europe think-tank, told Poland’s state press agency that the decision to appoint Ciolacu for another term constituted a failure to heed that call.
He described the move as “a way to maintain the old order in the country, despite a clear signal that the people oppose the elite that have governed since the early 90s.”
