Nicușor Dan, președintele României, îl desemnează pe Luca Niculescu în funcția de prim-ministru, la Palatul Cotroceni din București, 5 octombrie 2026. Inquam Photos / George CălinRomania has been caught in a prolonged political deadlock since May 2026, when the government led by Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan collapsed after a no-confidence vote backed by the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the nationalist AUR and other opposition groups. President Nicușor Dan has since struggled to assemble a parliamentary majority capable of supporting a new government. Three previous attempts failed before Dan nominated independent diplomat Luca Niculescu as prime minister-designate on October 5.
The main parties now at the centre of negotiations are the PSD, Romania’s largest parliamentary party, and the centre-right National Liberal Party (PNL), led by Bolojan. The two parties previously governed together in a broad coalition, alongside the centrist USR and the ethnic Hungarian UDMR, but that coalition collapsed amid disputes over economic policy and political responsibility. The PNL has increasingly sought to distance itself from its previous partnership with the PSD, while the Social Democrats are pushing for a return to a political arrangement dominated by them.
Niculescu is now attempting to build a government capable of winning the 233 votes needed for parliamentary approval. The PSD, led by Sorin Grindeanu, has made clear that it will not give him a blank cheque and is demanding, among other things, a change in economic policy and a clearly defined parliamentary majority.
The essence of the negotiations launched by Nicușor Dan with the political parties, through prime minister-designate Luca Niculescu, is to pressure the PNL into joining the “new” scenario being drawn up at the presidential palace — but, crucially, on terms agreed by the PSD: in other words, the old story of rebuilding the coalition, only this time without the USR.
For the PNL, that would amount to a 180-degree turn from its attempt in recent months to break away from the era of its toxic partnership with the PSD, which culminated in a disastrous performance at the 2024 elections.
Such a radical change would carry structural risks for the PNL — from a moral failure that could prove extremely costly electorally and politically to the potential destabilisation of the party itself. The existing fault lines within the Liberals could deepen and widen overnight, while a sudden leadership crisis could no longer be ruled out.
The arrows being fired at the PNL these days are plainly visible: Sorin Grindeanu’s Thursday ultimatum — either the PSD-PNL-UDMR coalition is rebuilt, or the PSD will not vote for the government, thereby prolonging the crisis for yet another round while blaming the PNL’s stubbornness; a flurry of hearings at the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) in Iași in the Bogos case, with the intended recipient of the message apparently being Ilie Bolojan; and, finally, a Constitutional Court which, on Wednesday, rejected the Bolojan cabinet’s efforts to resolve the issue of the €1 billion sought by what the author portrays as the judiciary’s powerful leadership.
Yet none of this is new at this level.
At the beginning of the crisis, in June, after it became clear that the “Motion” operation was losing its blitzkrieg momentum, the PNL was hit by much the same strategy we are witnessing now.
Then, in June, as today in October, efforts to revive the PSD-PNL dance, with the UDMR included, unfolded against a suspicious backdrop of bizarre coincidences. There was an attempt to split the PNL and isolate Bolojan through President Nicușor Dan’s move to nominate Adrian Veștea, combined with direct support from the PSD for Veștea — including a guarantee that it would vote for him and accompanying him to negotiations with the parties, including at the headquarters of AUR.
At the same time, the DNA opened the Ciucu case, while the Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) launched an aggressive investigation into care homes in Bihor County, Bolojan’s political stronghold — a case that later burst like a soap bubble.
Finally, around the same time, the judiciary overturned decisions adopted at an extraordinary PNL congress against members accused of attempting a putsch.
As is well known, the combined pressure exerted then, although significant and unmistakable in its message, was still not enough to make the PNL fall into line.
Whether the renewed effort will succeed this time remains to be seen. We will find out very quickly — it is a matter of days.
But judging not only from the precedent but also from what lies ahead — the harsh consequences that would confront the Liberals if they gave in — I am inclined to believe that the latest attempt to pressure the PNL is more likely to fail than succeed.
Despite the bombastic speeches about the need to end the current political crisis urgently and “responsibly” — speeches coming relentlessly from both the PSD and the Cotroceni presidential palace — the main objective of Sorin Grindeanu and Nicușor Dan is not simply to gather the 233 votes needed to approve the government.
It is, above all, to secure a parliamentary majority capable of ensuring at least a minimum level of functionality for the Niculescu cabinet, while also ensuring that the political costs of governing are not borne solely by the PSD, even as the benefits of entering government accrue disproportionately to the Social Democrats.
Against this broader backdrop, attention should also be paid to a particularly notable event on Thursday: Sorin Grindeanu’s statements regarding the PSD’s demands and conditions for the Niculescu government envisioned by President Dan.
In substance, Grindeanu’s demands and conditions were sufficiently absurd to be taken almost as a joke. At the same time, they appeared designed to do maximum damage to the chances of the Niculescu government being installed.
They meticulously reflected the needs of the party apparatus while ignoring — and even openly defying — the needs of the PNL. The overall impression was that the PSD considered itself the centre of the galaxy and therefore entitled to form the government by itself, even though the prime minister-designate is not, formally at least, the PSD’s nominee, and the PSD is hardly the only power centre in Parliament.
In terms of presentation, Grindeanu’s speech on Thursday should also serve as a warning to prime minister-designate Luca Niculescu.
It was an almost “imperial” speech, apparently intended to remind Niculescu of the real balance of power that would exist once the PSD occupied the Victoria Palace — a balance of power that the prime minister-designate would have to accept quietly and without comment, from the position of the man who is visible to the public but holds little real power.
Indeed, from Thursday onwards it became clear that Luca Niculescu’s mission would be even more thankless than it initially appeared. Forming a government has become even more difficult and, if such a government is nevertheless created, the prime minister’s role will unquestionably be a diminished one.
In order to avoid early elections, satisfy an increasingly demanding PSD on which he has become ever more dependent, and eliminate the electoral threat represented by Bolojan, President Nicușor Dan looked favourably on the emergence of the crisis and was extraordinarily tolerant of its continuation.
It is probably for all these reasons that he now sees a trap in changing his attitude towards the PSD. And perhaps this trap is not imaginary but real.
But the head of state’s attitude towards the PNL is no less of a major trap.
Given the situation in which he finds himself — and into which he has placed the country — Nicușor Dan has no alternative but to accept the extreme option left to him: to recognise that, in order to escape the trap, he will have to leave one of his own objectives behind.
He will have to sacrifice something, however painful, from among his three personal objectives: early elections, the PSD, and the “Bolojan threat” — with the Luca Niculescu option for prime minister consequently disappearing from the equation as well.
In any case, no one will emerge unscathed from the experience that began on May 5, 2026.