June 24, 2026 Update 1

The latest news on RRI

Newsroom, 24.06.2026, 18:24

Government – Romania’s Social Democratic Party (PSD) announced on Wednesday that it is assuming responsibility for governing and is nominating its leader, Sorin Grindeanu, for the position of prime minister. The Social Democratic leadership also unanimously decided that it will not vote for a government that does not include the PSD and that it will negotiate with political parties that identify as pro-Western to reach an agreement to support the future executive branch. Grindeanu said that Romania urgently needs a functional government to replace the current interim government (PNL-USR-UDMR) team, which was dismissed by Parliament on May 5 through a motion of no confidence. Grindeanu previously served as prime minister from January to June 2017, when he was dismissed, again via a no-confidence motion—a unique case in post-communist Romanian democracy—introduced by his own party after he had fallen out of favor with the Social Democratic leader at the time, Liviu Dragnea, who was later imprisoned for corruption. Until the split with Dragnea, Grindeanu’s government had promoted legislative proposals that experts say were intended to subordinate the judiciary and put an end to the fight against corruption. (LS)