Romanian Social Democrats seek to avoid immediate cuts in local administration staff

The Social Democratic Party (PSD) on September 3 came up with a counter-proposal to prime minister Ilie Bolojan’s plan for a 10% cut of the local administration staff as of January 2026, accepting a 25% personnel reduction – but gradually, over a period of four years, according to G4media.ro. It is not clear when the first cuts would take place.

PM Bolojan set a two-week target for evaluating the specific personnel reduction per territorial administrative unit.

The prime minister’s plan, inspired by his experience at Ordea City Hall and Bihor County Council, aims at setting adequate staff in line with the workload and delegating the responsibility of hiring at a lower level, such as to force genuine performance-based selection of personnel (and eliminate the option of clientelism).

Bolojan also argued that visible personnel cuts have to be operated as of January 2026, such as to clear the promise of matching higher taxes and other socially costly measures by cutting the expenditure in the budgetary sector. This is critical for the public support of the PM – the sole support he seems to be counting on amid expected resentment likely to be generated among political parties with his plans for cutting redundant workplaces in local administration.

In contrast, PSD proposed a centralised and gradualist process apparently aimed at protecting the current employees rather than the taxpayers’ interests.On paper, the plan looks “smart” and probably the Social Democrats expect endorsement from president Nicusor Dan, who seems to side with gradualist solutions, but in fact it lacks deadlines and its design does not rely on decentralisation.

The chances that it would fail within less than a year are backed by the poor track record of Romanian administration in implementing long-term strategies. But even assuming the plan is actually implemented, it should be enforced at the central level. For instance, PSD proposes that the more digitalised an administrative unit is, the deeper the personnel cut should be, which diminishes the incentives for digitalisation requiring external (central) digitalisation.

The Social Democrats, however, came up with relevant criteria for setting up adequate personnel depending on each administrative unit, which PM Bolojan insists should be carried out within two, if not one week, and implemented as of January 2026.

While the budgetary impact of the local administration personnel reduction (not really a fully-fledged reform of the public administration) would be rather moderate, roughly EUR 300 million per year – the impact on the credibility of the government’s plans for fair fiscal consolidation is major