June 14, 2026, 12:25 p.mJune 14, 2026, 12:25 p.m
In Romania, an EU and NATO country, the government crisis that has been simmering for weeks is entering a new round. The EU parliamentarian Eugen Tomac, who was nominated for the office of prime minister ten days ago, gave up trying to form a government because he no longer saw any chance of a majority in parliament. President Nicusor Dan then commissioned the previously little-known Adrian Vestea of the bourgeois party PNL to form a government. Vestea and its planned cabinet should now be put to a vote in parliament.
Eugen Tomac has given up trying to form a government.Image: keystone
Vestea is the district council chairman of the Brasov region and was development minister from 2023 to 2024. Within the PNL he belongs to a small faction that rebels against the party leader and former head of government Ilie Bolojan. Bolojan, who was valued by many Romanians as extremely reform-minded and pro-European, was ousted by parliament on May 5th with a vote of no confidence – at the request of the Social Democrats (PSD), who until recently co-governed, and the right-wing extremist party AUR. The Social Democrats wanted to prevent Bolojan’s planned reforms, which would have cost lucrative contracts between state-owned companies and PSD-affiliated private companies.
Dispute between the head of state and the ousted prime minister
Bolojan criticized President Dan’s new nomination, saying he himself had not been informed in advance. The move was “a hostile act, an obvious attempt to divide the PNL”. Romanian media see it as a given that Dan sees the reformer Bolojan as a personal competitor and therefore wants to eliminate him.
Until his fall on May 5, Bolojan governed at the head of a coalition made up of the PSD, PNL, the liberal-conservative reform party USR and the Hungarian party UDMR. At the end of April, PSD left the coalition and has since strengthened the opposition bench in parliament, together with the right-wing extremist and EU-sceptic AUR as the second strongest party, as well as three other small right-wing extremist parties. No party officially wants to form a coalition with AUR. Mathematically, forming a pro-European majority in parliament without the PSD is difficult. Bolojan is currently governing provisionally, with limited powers. (dab/sda/dpa)