December 15, 2025 UPDATE

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 15.12.2025, 19:50

Motion. A no-confidence motion entitled “Romania is not for sale – No progressives in the government’ submitted by a number of opposition MPs was rejected on Monday by Parliament, with only 139 votes in favor out of the 232 needed for the government be dismissed. Deputies and senators from the ruling coalition formed by the Social Democratic Party, the National Liberal Party, the Save Romania Union and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania remained seated during voting. The motion demanded the resignation of the government led by the Liberal leader Ilie Bolojan over its inability to manage the country’s finance, healthcare, education, social protection, justice and public administration. “The Romanian people deserve more than empty promises and impoverishing policies. They deserve a government that acts in the best interest of the people, not in that  of business ordered by foreign interests,” said the signatories of the motion, demanding that Save Romania Union be ousted from the government. Also on Monday, the Senate will debate and vote on the simple motion initiated by the Alliance for the Union of Romania, the sovereignist opposition, against the environment minister Diana Buzoianu, whom they hold responsible for a water crisis affecting two counties in the south of the country. Diana Buzoianu reiterated that she was not going to resign and that those responsible for the situation are to be found locally.

Visits. Romanian President Nicuşor Dan is this week undertaking visits to several states for talks on EU cooperation on defence. He will also attend official meetings in Brussels focused primarily on supporting NATO’s eastern flank countries in the context of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The president arrived on Monday in Finland, where he met members of the Romanian community in that country. He is also due to meet representatives of the Finnish defence and aerospace industry and hold talks with Prime Minister Petteri Orpo. President Nicuşor Dan will next travel to Espoo, home to one of Europe’s leading applied research institutes. He will then attend the Summit of EU States on NATO’s Eastern Flank, where talks will focus on EU support for these countries (including Romania), regional security and strategic coordination amid tensions generated by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

EU. Romanian Foreign Minister Oana Ţoiu on Monday attended the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council and sideline events taking place in Brussels. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the agenda of talks included Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, with the participation of Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha‎ via videolink, the situation in the Middle East, including in Syria and Lebanon, and China, with a focus on geopolitical and geo-economic aspects. On the sidelines of the meeting, Minister Oana Ţoiu attended an informal breakfast of EU foreign ministers with Armenia’s Foreign Minister, Ararat Mirzoyan. Dpa news agency notes that the Brussels meeting comes just days before a summit where European leaders are expected to decide whether they are prepared to make frozen Russian state assets available to Ukraine in the form of loans, in order to cover Ukraine’s long-term financial needs.

Protests. New protests were held in Bucharest and other cities across the country  in support of an independent judiciary. Following a documentary broadcast by independent media outlet Recorder, in which magistrates exposed some of the problems within the justice system, the demonstrators called for resignations at the top of the judicial hierarchy. The latter also said the protest was a means of expressing their solidarity with the judges and prosecutors who had the courage to criticize the situation in the judiciary. The country’s president, Nicușor Dan says he shares society’s concerns about the functioning of the judiciary. In a message posted on X, he promised to act within constitutional limits to defend judicial independence and the rule of law. He said the issues raised in the public sphere are serious, but solvable. The president invited magistrates for talks on Monday, December 22, at 10:00 a.m. In the meantime, he said he was expecting all those interested in taking part in next week’s meeting to submit their concerns regarding systemic problems in the judiciary.

Ukraine. The White House views the negotiations between the US and Ukrainian delegations held in Berlin as productive, a senior Washington official said. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said the talks of the US envoys with Russia regarding a possible resolution of the conflict were not easy. The German capital on Sunday and Monday hosted meetings between the American and Ukrainian delegations dedicated to resolving the conflict in Ukraine. The US delegation included the US president’s special envoy Steven Witkoff and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The Ukrainian side was represented by president Volodymyr Zelensky, the Secretary of the Security Council, Rustem Umerov, and the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Andriy Hnatov. (CM)