UDMR president Kelemen Hunor said late Monday that administrative-territorial reform is needed, but should follow analysis and consultation with local communities. His remarks, carried by Mediafax from Digi24, respond to proposals announced by PSD president Sorin Grindeanu on administrative reform and cutting the number of state institutions.

Kelemen insisted the two tracks must be treated separately: reorganising central institutions and merging localities. On agencies and government bodies, he said the government can act without asking anyone’s approval and that reform should have come sooner — a political intention, not a law already adopted.

On merging communes, the UDMR leader said such a reform should be preceded by referendums and analyses that take local particularities into account. He also stressed ethnic communities’ rights: reorganisation must not shift the ethnic balance by merging or abolishing communes.

“There is a need for reform, but it has to be done thoughtfully. You have to take a lot of things into account; you can’t do it from an office by assumption,” Kelemen said. He pointed to the geography of the Apuseni Mountains, where long distances would make it hard to combine communes to reach population thresholds of several thousand residents.

His conclusion: territorial administrative reform is entirely different from reforming government institutions, where changes can be made more quickly. This article does not present mergers as enacted law and invents no adoption timetable.

Source: Kelemen Hunor, despre comasarea localităților mici | Mediafax