All roads lead to Romania, as PM vows motorway to Moldova will open this year

A 147.8km stretch of the A7 motorway between Bucharest and Moldova and north Romania will open this year, Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu pledged at the Social Democratic Party (PSD) election conference in Suceava, north-east Romania, on Friday, 12 April. Parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held in Romania on 8 December.

“No matter how much you develop the country, if there are no links… with Transylvania (central Romania), the Carpathians; if we do not have a motorway to Bucharest, or from Bucharest to Constanta (south-east Romania), Oltenia and Craiova (south-west Romania), with all due respect, Moldova has no chance,” Ciolacu said.

Acknowledging the length of realising the project, Ciolacu said for the first time in a while he and an official from Banat (an area that includes west Romania) had managed to discuss subjects other than the Moldova motorway.

“Every two or three weeks (I visit) the construction site to view progress. I promise today, in Suceava, that 147.8km of the Moldova motorway will be opened this year,” Ciolacu said. 

The Ciolacu government a fortnight ago also authorised RON 9.2bn for the Pascani-Suceava stretch of the Gura Humorului to the Pascani-Suceava A7 motorway. “This is the last step in getting the motorway to your doorstep,” he said.

Ciolacu said investments are expanding the economy – and underlined that investments in large infrastructure are the solution for reducing the gaps in the less developed areas.

Inflation, poverty down, minimum wage hiked

In other matters, Ciolacu noted that Romania’s annual inflation rate fell to 6.6% in March from 7.2% in February, while Romania’s GDP reached the highest level in the country’s history, over RON 1.6tn last year. The number of Romanians in extreme poverty fell 855,000 year-on-year in 2023, according to official data.

“In parallel, as promised, the government’s primary goal has been to increase purchasing power, especially for low-income people. We have combated absurd price rises by capping the price of utilities and the trade margin on basic foodstuffs, and meanwhile have come up with active measures to increase the income of workers by increasing the minimum wage, and pensioners by increasing pensions, through support packages for the vulnerable, such as vouchers for utility bills and food,” Ciolacu wrote on Facebook.