The new general mayor will meet with the prime minister and the finance minister on Sunday / Ciucu said how much money Bucharest needs “just to pay the debts and to function”
Ilie Bolojan and Ciprian Ciucu, at the announcement of the exit poll results, at the headquarters of the PNL party in Bucharest, December 7, 2025 | Photo: Inquam Photos / Codrin Unici
The General Mayor of the Capital, Ciprian Ciucu, will have a meeting on Sunday, at 4:00 p.m., at the Government, with Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan and with the Minister of Finance, Alexandru Nazare, on the subject of the financial situation of Bucharest City Hall, informs PMB, quoted by Agerpres.
The three are all liberals, Prime Minister Bolojan being the president of the PNL and Ciucu one of the four first vice-presidents of the party.
The meeting comes after Ciprian Ciucu declared, on Saturday, that Bucharest's budget is poorly constructed both structurally and institutionally and added that structural reforms are needed, as well as the gradual implementation of the referendum initiated by Nicusor Dan.
“What should be the minimum amount, just to pay the debts and operate next year – the amount is 8.5 billion lei. If we are to think about debts, plus things that have to happen, salaries, public debt, the subsidy as it is calculated today, without any other measure for next year, is 1.3 billion for heating and 1.5 billion for transport. We still have public lighting, we still have health, the 19 hospitals that we have, and our own apparatus and subordinate institutions, another 1.5 billion. So, this is what the budget should look like next year. It is practically impossible to talk about whether we can balance the budget next year,” said Ciprian Ciucu, in a press conference at the Capital City Hall.
He specified that, from the analysis made on the structure of development and operating expenses at the PMB level, somewhere around 8 billion lei go to operation, and to development less than 1 billion lei, while the sectors have somewhere “three times and better, more money for development”.
The new general mayor emphasized that PMB needs financial support including until the end of this year and along the way, at the beginning of next year, when the budget law will be drawn up.
In this sense, he announced that on Sunday he will have a meeting with Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan and the Minister of Finance, Alexandru Nazare, to discuss these issues.
“It's a miracle” that Nicușor Dan kept the City Hall afloat
“I want to say, right from the start, that Mr. President Nicusor Dan was and is right regarding the structural problem of the budget of the municipality of Bucharest (…) It is a small miracle that Mr. former mayor general Nicusor Dan managed to keep this city hall afloat”, stated Ciprian Ciucu at the beginning of his first press conference as mayor general.
He emphasized that he does not want to talk about the “difficult inheritance” but about “how he got into this situation”.
Ciucu presented the expenses made by the Capital City Hall in the first 11 months of this year, showing that approximately 53% of the money of the city hall was spent on heating, transport, 9% on payments for social assistance. He added that the city hall also has “many, many debts”.
“It can be seen that this town hall is not a development agency, where the mayor does not have a lot of flexibility to think about projects and policies, but only to take money from the Government, where it comes from, to make further payments. This is what any general mayor can do today, that it is me, that it is someone else, he has nothing else to do but to give money further”, stated Ciprian Ciucu.
