Romania cuts 87 bonuses for EU funds

Romania has put a price on public-sector pay reform: 87 of 151 bonus categories for state employees are to go, and those that survive will be capped at 20% of base salary (Digi24). The new pay law, published today, must pass parliament by July 1 if Bucharest is to unlock more than €700 million from the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), the EU's post-pandemic fund where money is released only when promised reforms are judged to have been delivered.

That is the theory. The politics are rougher. Unions, magistrates and court clerks are already moving to block the law. At least four other member states are caught in the same bind between domestic resistance and EU conditions, with the same date hanging over them: August 31, the legal cutoff after which the European Commission automatically reduces unspent RRF allocations.

Willing governments, unwilling countries

Romania's governing coalition has the votes. That does not mean it has the country with it. Police unions have promised to "block implementation by all legal means." Magistrates say the reform would cut their salaries by roughly 11% and breach judicial independence. A Bucharest court has already ordered the government to pay judges' salary arrears, with daily penalties if it fails to comply (Romania Insider).

In Hungary, the blockage lies deeper inside the state. Péter Magyar's new government says it wants reform, but institutions shaped during the Orbán years remain in place. Courts are still run under previous-regime appointees. University foundations built to channel state assets are entrenched. Before any of Hungary's €10.4 billion allocation can flow, Magyar must satisfy 27 rule-of-law "super-milestones" covering judicial independence, anti-corruption and procurement transparency. So far, not a single euro has been paid out (Portfolio, Euobserver).

Portugal's problem is quieter, and in some ways more awkward. Lisbon has already received much of its allocation. It now wants to change how compliance is checked, with a proposed law raising the Court of Auditors' scrutiny threshold from €750,000 to €10 million. Most public contracts would no longer be checked before signature. The court's president warned this would create "zones without oversight" worth billions each year. The body meant to audit EU spending is being weakened in the name of speeding it up.

The European Parliament took a sharper line on Slovakia. On May 20, MEPs voted 347 to 165 to ask the Commission to consider freezing Slovak funds, pointing to abolished anti-corruption bodies and suspected fraud involving rural development money (European Parliament, Denník N). The resolution has no legal force, but it landed days after the Commission had already cut Slovakia's allocation following an investigation by OLAF, the EU's anti-fraud office.

The precedent Poland set

Poland is the case everyone is watching. In February 2024, the Commission unfroze €137 billion for Warsaw after Donald Tusk's government came to office, even though no judicial reform laws had yet passed. A "plan of action" was enough (European Papers).

Two years later, Poland's President Nawrocki has vetoed the key judiciary bills. Judges have challenged the unfreezing at the EU's top court, where a senior legal adviser has already questioned whether the milestones were adequate. It is the first serious legal test of how much discretion the Commission really has under the RRF.

Who decides when the deadline hits

For Irish readers, there is a familiar rhythm here: reform promises made under pressure, money held back, and domestic politics turning technical conditions into a test of sovereignty. The RRF gives the Commission almost complete discretion to decide whether a reform "satisfactorily fulfils" its milestone. There is no formal route for unions, courts or professional bodies inside a member state to challenge that judgment (Verfassungsblog). No RRF milestone has ever been formally rejected.

Romania's unions cannot legally stop the pay law. Hungary's inherited institutions may not move quickly enough. Portugal is thinning out the bodies that check EU spending. Slovakia is brushing off parliamentary pressure. Poland has already shown that a government trusted in Brussels can collect billions on promises. August 31 will show whether EU conditionality is a binding instrument or just another deadline that can be worked around.