{"id":31990,"date":"2026-05-05T12:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T12:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/31990\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T12:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T12:40:10","slug":"romanias-pro-european-coalition-collapses-after-prime-minister-fails-no-confidence-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/31990\/","title":{"rendered":"Romania\u2019s pro-European coalition collapses after prime minister fails no-confidence vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) \u2014 Romania\u2019s pro-European coalition collapsed Tuesday after lawmakers voted in favor of a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, triggering a fresh period of turmoil in the European Union country less than a year after the coalition was sworn in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The joint effort was launched last week<\/a> when the leftist Social Democratic Party, or PSD, which withdrew from the coalition in late April, and the hard-right opposition Alliance for the Unity of Romanians party, or AUR, submitted the motion to Parliament. <\/p>\n

After a parliamentary debate, 281 lawmakers voted in favor of the motion and four against. Lawmakers from Bolojan\u2019s center-right National Liberal Party, or PNL, and coalition partners Save Romania Union party and the small ethnic Hungarian UDMR party did not cast votes.<\/p>\n

Bolojan called the motion \u201ccynical and artificial\u201d and said before the vote that it \u201cseems to be written by people who were not in government every day and did not participate in all the decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is cynical, because it does not take into account the context in which we find ourselves,\u201d he said. \u201cI assumed the position of prime minister, being aware that it comes with enormous pressure and that I would not receive applause from the citizens. But I chose to do what was urgent and necessary for our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Romania has faced a long period of instability after a presidential election was annulled<\/a> in December 2024, and the country is grappling with one of the highest budget deficits in the EU, rampant inflation and a technical recession. <\/p>\n

In June, when the coalition was voted in<\/a>, it pledged to make reducing the budget deficit a top priority. The PSD often found itself at loggerheads with Bolojan over some of the austerity measures<\/a>, which included tax hikes, public sector wage and pension freezes, and cutting public spending and public administration jobs.<\/p>\n

PSD said Bolojan had \u201cfailed to implement any genuine reform\u201d in his 10 months leading the government, and said Romania needs a leader who is \u201ccapable of collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bolojan said that he took tough but necessary fiscal measures that effectively \u201cregained the trust of the markets in the Romanian government.\u201d<\/p>\n

The PSD would be needed to form a pro-European parliamentary majority. The party has previously ruled out entering a government with AUR. George Simion, the AUR leader, said Tuesday that voters had \u201csupported and wanted water, food, energy,\u201d but had \u201creceived taxes, war and poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe assume the future of this country, a future government and restore the hope of the Romanians,\u201d he said. \u201cRomania must go back to the vote of the Romanians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cristian Andrei, a Bucharest-based political consultant, said the crisis will likely lead to a stalemate, since \u201cno one has a majority, or a coalition, and it will take the president … weeks to find such a majority and name a new prime minister, prolonging the indecision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this moment, there are two tentative options for a new Cabinet, both difficult to achieve; either a reshuffled coalition, without Bolojan, in the same formation … or a minority Cabinet, rather led by PSD and satellites from populist parties, like AUR, or other small groups,\u201d he said. \u201cA PSD-AUR official Cabinet is not a possibility today because the president will not endorse it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The prime ministerial position was set to be rotated in 2027 from Bolojan to a PSD premier as part of a power-sharing agreement. A general election is scheduled for 2028.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

McGrath reported from Leamington Spa, England.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) \u2014 Romania\u2019s pro-European coalition collapsed Tuesday after lawmakers voted in favor of a no-confidence motion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[635,54,39,40,629,309,630,633,3202,46,5535,2986,314],"class_list":{"0":"post-31990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-elections","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-european-union","12":"tag-f","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-i","15":"tag-inflation","16":"tag-international-agreements","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-recessions-and-depressions","19":"tag-voting","20":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}