Habemus government: Niculescu cabinet sworn in, set to be dead meat in six months

On Tuesday, the joint sitting of the two chambers of the Romanian parliament voted 280 to 58 to give a vote of confidence to Luca Niculescu's government. The swearing-in required 233 votes, and 338 lawmakers took part in the secret ballot. Besides the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the National Liberal Party (PNL), the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ), the national minorities' group and several smaller factions also voted in favor, while the Save Romania Union (USR) and the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) voted against. The PNL and the RMDSZ, however, are not joining the government; they gave their support only "out of necessity", to put an end to the crisis that had lasted more than five months since the no-confidence motion of May 5. The new government held its first meeting as early as Tuesday evening; of the 18 ministries, 12 are led by the PSD, and the interior minister and deputy prime minister, Marian Neacșu, is the first Romanian interior minister to have been previously convicted by a final court ruling and later rehabilitated.

Niculescu, who introduced himself as an independent and a former journalist, began his speech by saying that Romania has no more time to waste. In his view, the consumption-based growth model has reached its limits, so the government cannot promise to immediately make up for losses, but it must protect the most vulnerable. Pensions will be indexed starting in 2027, but only within the fiscal framework — the state will first cut its own expenses and only then ask taxpayers for more. The government is sticking to its deficit-reduction commitments, will keep the flat tax, and will scrap the minimum turnover tax — at least according to the fine words.

Among the first tasks, he named adjusting the budget without increasing the deficit, adopting the 2027 budget, and closing out the recovery plan without losses. Investments of more than 100 million euros will be coordinated by the prime minister's office, he is offering parliamentary parties a ten-year energy pact, and wants to bring 6,000 megawatts of new capacity online by the end of next year. In foreign policy, he promised to abandon "the reflexes of the eternal candidate", to take a more active role in the EU and NATO, to strengthen the strategic partnership with the United States, to support Moldova's EU accession, and to involve Romanian companies in rebuilding Ukraine. To fight disinformation, he would set up a government response mechanism without censorship powers and an information resilience fund that would support media literacy, fact-checking and the independent local press. He spoke separately about Romanian children in Ukraine, whom he would help with textbooks, teachers and scholarships to study in their native language, and then called Romania's minorities a "national treasure" that must be supported unconditionally.

The debate preceding the vote was far sharper than the vote itself. Sorin Grindeanu, the leader of the PSD, began by saying that "the Bolojan government is leaving, but its bill remains on Romanians' table". He promised that the PSD would not manage the right's failure but would expose it publicly from day one, and called for an urgent audit of public finances. He accused the USR of stirring up hatred and of "theft" surrounding the Mangalia shipyard, Romaero and the SAFE program, reproached the PNL for having been in power for seven years without ever having won a single election, and said the PSD had only been used as a "Red Cross". He also outlined a three-point program: stabilizing public finances, boosting the economy for small and medium-sized enterprises and industry, and modernizing the state. The PSD will assess its own performance in government in six months.

Ilie Bolojan, the leader of the PNL, led his party into opposition with an extremely harsh speech. He declared that there is no difficult legacy whatsoever, and that no one blackmailed the PNL. He attacked several ministerial candidates by name: he said the labor minister had kept the pay law locked in a drawer, which cost the country 770 million euros; the justice minister had spent pages explaining why the judicial pension reform was unconstitutional, only to do nothing in the end; and he called the transport ministry Grindeanu's "fiefdom". "My expectations of this government are low," he said.

Hunor Kelemen, the leader of the RMDSZ, spoke of a government backed by a "majority born out of necessity", lacking a single-color, stable majority. He said that only the government crisis is ending, while the fiscal and social crisis, as well as polarization, will remain, and that the RMDSZ will negotiate every law and ordinance with the prime minister one by one. "Politics consists of compromises; beyond compromise lies chaos," he said, adding that this may be the last chance for a democratic Romania.

Speaking for the USR, Radu Miruță accused the PSD of trying to "PSD-ize" state institutions through the government, and linked the party to bribes found in car trunks, ministers traveling on private jets, and the private planes of the Nordis affair. Oana Țoiu said Grindeanu is pulling Romania out of the crisis like an arsonist arriving with a bucket of water while carrying matches in his pocket, and said this is the last time the PSD will be handed power as a gift. The PSD's Florin Manole responded with a series of mocking "gifts" of his own, including the final conviction of USR leader Dominic Fritz, the electoral authority's report on party financing, and a reference to a former USR defense minister's missing diploma. George Simion, the leader of AUR, called the cabinet a "puppet government", accused the PNL of betrayal, and asked Bolojan what he was being blackmailed with. He closed his speech with the words "freedom for Călin Georgescu".

After the vote, Niculescu thanked the PSD, the PNL, the RMDSZ, the minorities' group and every lawmaker who supported him. Even before the vote, he had said that he is not a politician and would not take part in a contest of "biting retorts", adding that the difference would be that he would respond not with retorts but with deeds. He also said he was not asking parliament for a blank check, but for a government with full powers for the country after such a long crisis. Under the agreement signed with Niculescu, the PNL will not submit or support a no-confidence motion until March 1, 2027; the RMDSZ has signed a six-month support agreement; and the PSD will take stock after six months. The new government, then, is a solution put away for the winter — or, put another way, one that will be dead meat in six months.

Ugar