On Thursday in Buzău, Development Minister Alexandru Stoica said localities that choose a voluntary merger could receive investment and a cut of up to 50 percent in taxes for residents. The programme, he said, goes out for public consultation next week for ten days, then to the Government. It is not a decision that has been adopted.

The first stage covers 429 administrative units with at most 1,500 inhabitants. The threshold is the one in Law 351/2001, which says such a unit should have at least that many people. Stoica told DC News the count comes from 2023 figures, which he also used in the 2024 campaign, and that the state can no longer fund investment in all these small places and still leave people with public services.

In Buzău he spoke of a cut of “up to 50 percent”. At DC News he gave a tighter example: 50 percent off the tax on buildings and on land inside the built-up area, if two localities agree to join. Until the draft is published, the rate is an example from the minister, not a voted measure.

The investments he listed are water, sewerage, link roads, gas networks, schools, kindergartens and community centres. Interested town halls should start local referendums by 1 March 2027. The effects, he said, would come from 2028.

Stoica also named his home commune, Pănătău. He said it will be part of a merger, voluntary or “by assumption”, and that it “will not escape”. In his own words the voluntary track is not the only one. He added that people should keep the services and a clerk in the places where they were used to going to the town hall, even if the seat does not stay there. Until the draft is public, the list of localities and the tax cuts are an intention of the ministry.

Image: Wikimedia Commons — Suceava town hall, 2021 (CC0). The photograph shows a town hall, not one of the localities concerned.

Sources consulted: Localities that choose voluntary merger could get tax relief — Radio România Actualități; Taxes up to 50 percent lower for communes that agree to merge — Antena 3 CNN; Half taxes for those who vote to merge localities — DC News.