Nicușor Dan nominates Siegfried Mureșan as Romania’s third prime minister pick

President Nicușor Dan named Siegfried Mureșan, a Liberal member of the European Parliament and vice-president of the European People’s Party, as Romania’s candidate for prime minister on Thursday. It is Dan’s third attempt to end a crisis that began when the Social Democrats left a pro-European coalition and joined the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians to topple Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan in the spring.

Mureșan, 44, has ten days to present a cabinet and seek a confidence vote. He needs 233 votes. He is backed by his own National Liberal Party, the Save Romania Union and the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania. On Friday he posted a photograph from the prime minister’s office with Bolojan, USR leader Dominic Fritz and UDMR’s Tanczos Barna, and said work on a governing programme had already started.

The Social Democrats, the largest party in the lower house, have put forward their own leader, Sorin Grindeanu, and say they will not vote for a cabinet they do not join. AUR, the second-largest group, has given Mureșan a cold reception, in part because he sits in the European Parliament. Dan said after consultations that Mureșan had received the most support of the names discussed, and that none of the options had a clear majority. “I have seen more electoral concern from political parties than for the national interest,” the president said.

Two earlier nominations failed. Adviser Eugen Tomac withdrew before a vote. Liberal Adrian Veștea did not gather the numbers. Bolojan remains caretaker prime minister. The collapse in May followed an austerity programme that PSD would not carry. The rating agencies have been watching the stalemate because Romania’s investment-grade standing is under pressure.

Mureșan’s public case is experience with European funds and large budgets. Fritz called him an economist who knows how to negotiate and how to write a budget and said USR would stay open to talks with PSD. Bolojan said he was the right person for the job. Those endorsements come from the three parties that already support him. They do not add seats in the chamber.

Romania has spent the summer without a fully empowered government while fuel prices, the Iran war and the Ukraine war have all moved against European budgets. A designated prime minister with ten days and no majority is not yet a government. If parliament rejects him, Dan will have to find a fourth name or accept that the arithmetic only works if PSD comes back into a coalition it walked out of in May.

The useful detail for readers outside Bucharest is the count. Three parties can nominate. Two larger parties can block. The president has now used his third shot on an MEP who is well known in Brussels and little loved by the two groups that actually decide a vote in the Palace of the Parliament. Ten days will show whether that gap can be closed with a programme, or whether Romania stays in caretaker mode into autumn.