Labour Minister Petre-Florin Manole asked Prime Minister Luca Niculescu on Wednesday, 21 October, to replace Dantes Nicolae Bratu, state inspector-general of the Labour Inspectorate, as a matter of urgency. This is a request, not a dismissal already signed.

On Facebook, Manole ties the proposal to images from September: packages and goods put in the boot of the service car. DNA has opened a criminal inquiry, he writes. He wants an Inspectorate that applies the law, without exceptions. The minister’s words, not a verdict.

Digi24 and News.ro say DNA opened an in rem file on its own motion, looking at the offence of taking bribes. In rem means on the facts, not a conviction. Epoch Times quotes the ordinance: a file opened of the office’s own motion, after the information appeared online; documents of the Labour Inspectorate may serve as evidence. The presumption of innocence stands.

Bratu had returned to the post in early September. Eight days later Mediaflux reporters filmed him after a meeting with territorial inspectors. The pictures show bags and boxes taken to the car. Antena 3 wrote of “bribes”. That is a headline label, not a sentence.

The prime minister has not announced, in today’s sources, that he has taken him out of the job. The request sits with Niculescu. The file sits with DNA.

A proposal to replace him. Not a dismissal and not a conviction.

Image: Yair-haklai, DNA headquarters, Stirbei Voda Street, Bucharest, 14 October 2024, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; the building, not a photograph of the 21 October 2026 request.

Sources consulted: Manole asks the prime minister to dismiss the head of the Labour Inspectorate - Epoch Times, 21 October 2026; Florin Manole asks for the Labour Inspectorate chiefs dismissal; DNA in rem inquiry - Digi24, 21 October 2026.