European projects minister Dragoș Pîslaru stated on Thursday, February 5, that Romania will lose EUR 231 million part of the EU-backed Recovery and Resilience Funds (or PNRR) because it did not implement the reform of magistrates’ pensions on time. A decision on this initiative has been repeatedly postponed by the Constitutional Court (CCR).

Romania was supposed to adopt this project by November 28, 2025, to be certain not to lose the money, but there would still have been time to implement this reform until the European Commission issued an official response. However, the Constitutional Court repeatedly delayed government projects to reform magistrates’ pensions. 

Pîslaru said that a meeting took place with EU officials on Friday, January 30, regarding payment requests 3 and 4 of the PNRR. During the meeting, representatives of the European Commission clearly stated that the milestone regarding the magistrates’ pensions is not considered fulfilled. 

“Romania has gone to the European Commission with hypotheses too many times. The milestone was not met, so we lost the EUR 231 million. We will have to compensate the sum for investments from the state budget,” the minister said, cited by Biziday, highlighting that this will impact Romania’s already deficit-saddled budget.

The failure to meet the milestone “affects our European credibility and shows citizens that important reforms cannot be carried out,” Pîslaru said.

“The appetite for reform until this government was extremely low. The idea of relativizing deadlines shows that we can lose money that could have been brought for the benefit of Romanian citizens,” he added.

In October 2025, Romania’s Constitutional Court rejected a similar project, which would have led to a phased increase of the retirement age for magistrates to 65 years and would have lowered their pensions to 70% of the net allowance received in the last month of activity. The court pointed to the fact that the government had not waited for a consultative opinion from the Superior Council of Magistracy. 

The Ilie Bolojan government adopted another draft law reforming magistrates’ pensions after that, but the law was challenged before the Constitutional Court again. The institution was supposed to issue a ruling on the matter on December 10, but the judges decided to postpone until December 28. At that date, four CCR judges appointed by the Social Democratic Party left the session, a first in CCR history. 

The next day, December 29, the same judges refused to enter the deliberation room. The next CCR session was set for January 16, when another postponement was voted. The next CCR session is scheduled for February 11.

During a press conference on Wednesday, February 4, prime minister Ilie Bolojan said he will inform the Constitutional Court about the consequences of postponing decisions regarding magistrates’ pensions.

“If a decision is not made and we go again for a postponement, the probability of losing this money is very high. And I think every institution must be informed about the consequences of certain decisions. For us, it is important to close all aspects related to these clarifications, because we have to collect EUR 2.6 billion,” Ilie Bolojan stated.

radu@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Dragos Pislaru on Facebook)