Update: The government will seek confidence vote on administrative reorganization act

The Romanian Government will seek a confidence vote in Parliament in order to pass through the country’s administrative reorganization, Democratic Liberal Party (PDL) general secretary Ioan Oltean announced on Friday.

In his opinion, reorganizing the country into 8 counties from 41 presently this would improve European Union fund absorption. EU has not explicitly asked Romania to change its territorial organization, Olteanu admitted. He went on saying that the ruling coalition wants the 2012 local elections to take place after the change is implemented.

The new counties should have their capitals at Cluj-Napoca, Brasov, Timisoara, Craiova, Constanta, Iasi, Ploiesti and Bucharest.

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Romanian President Traian Basescu said this Wednesday that the government should consider reorganizing the country into eight counties or seven counties and Bucharest. Since 1968 Romania has had an administrative organization that includes 41 counties, but the president argued that this favors corruption and makes it hard to absorb EU funds.

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Basescu also said that the administrative organization law which took effect in 1968 has never been amended. In his opinion, a new administrative system would eliminate red tape and would step up the decentralization process.

Opposition representatives on the other hand, argued that such a measure would come with huge costs and would only create a new level of bureaucracy without solving the existing administrative issues.

Simona Bazavan