Romanian President Calls Cabinet Talks as Coalition Emerges

(Bloomberg) -- Romanian President Klaus Iohannis called for official consultations on a new government for Monday, signaling a breakthrough in talks between the country’s two largest parties to form a majority coalition.

After two weeks of negotiations, the Social Democrats and the Liberals, along with the junior ethnic-Hungarian party, will attend the talks with Iohannis. The president had previously said he’ll allow the talks to start only after a clear majority emerges.

The two parties, which have been feuding with each other in recent years over, are close to agreeing on a new governing program and aim to form a new cabinet by Nov. 25.

But they still need to agree on a joint candidate for premier, as the Social Democrats back their leader Marcel Ciolacu for the job, while the Liberals support retired army general Nicolae Ciuca. More talks will take place in the next two days to reach a compromise, according to Ciolacu. 

“We’ve finalized the political agreement and we aim to complete all negotiations by the end of the week, so we can fulfill our promise to have a government in place by Thursday,” he said.

Some of the planned measures already agreed include a 10% increase in pensions from 2022, a one-time bonus of 1,200 lei ($273) for people with low pensions to help them cope with the surge in energy bills and an increase of the minimum wage to 2,550 lei.

The budget impact of the measures is estimated at about 1.2% of economic output, Ciuca said on Friday.  

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