Romania's former president Traian Băsescu wins legal battle for state allowance
Traian Băsescu, who served as Romania’s president between 2004 and 2014, won roughly EUR 150,000 in monthly allowances for former heads of state in court. The money was withheld after Băsescu was declared a collaborator of the communist-era information agency, the Securitate.
Among the rights that former heads of state receive for the rest of their lives are the free use of an official protocol residence intended as a home, which also includes a space intended as an office, staffed with one adviser post and one secretary post. They also receive a monthly allowance equal to 75% of the allowance granted to the sitting president of Romania.
Finally, former presidents benefit from security and protection, as well as free use of a car, permanently provided by the Protection and Guard Service, according to the regulations in force.
Traian Băsescu initially lost the rights due to former heads of state following a law voted in Parliament in 2021, but the Constitutional Court reinstated his rights in July 2025. CCR said the 2001 law, which stripped former presidents of these privileges if found to have collaborated with the communist-era Securitate, violated legal principles because it applied retroactively, lacked transitional provisions, and breached the principle of legality.
After the CCR decision, the former president requested the retroactive payment of the allowance and the allocation of an official protocol residence, according to G4Media.
Băsescu has repeatedly denied knowingly collaborating with the political police. In court, he claimed he had worked with military counterintelligence and only realized after the 1989 Revolution that this structure had been part of the Securitate’s Fourth Directorate.
(Photo source: Inquam Photos | Adrian Neagoe)
