The political conflict between the Ministry of Energy and Bucharest City Hall threatens to put Bucharest’s centralised heating system in a critical situation. Mutual accusations between Energy Minister Sebastian Burduja (PNL), a supporter of presidential candidate Crin Antonescu, and Mayor General Nicușor Dan, an independent candidate for the Romanian presidency, highlight the financial and operational vulnerabilities of the district heating network. Between political accusations and harsh financial realities, Bucharest risks losing not only heat and hot water, but also the opportunity to modernise an infrastructure that is essential for the quality of life of millions of inhabitants. A transparent and constructive negotiation between the Government and the City Hall is the only reasonable solution. Maybe after the presidential elections, when and if the political temperature cools down.
“The district heating system itself is collapsing,” warns Sebastian Burduja. ELCEN, a company under the aegis of the Ministry of Energy, claims unpaid debts of more than 1.4 billion lei from Termoenergetica, the municipal firm responsible for distributing heat and hot water in Bucharest. “The City Hall has also stopped paying Termoenergetica, its own company, which is why its management has informed the mayor general that it is going into insolvency,” Burduja explains, emphasising the gravity of the situation.
Against the background of this dispute, ELCEN’s general manager, Claudiu Crețu, said that in April “Bucharest City Hall did not pay a single cent” to ELCEN. According to data he presented, in January 2020 the debt to ELCEN was 169 million lei, in 2021 it reached 243 million lei, in 2022 639 million lei and in 2023 931 million lei. “In 2024 we jumped by one billion – 1.005 billion lei, and today – 1.4 billion lei. These are figures, maths, not stories…”
Mayor Nicușor Dan attributes these financial problems to a political decision of the PSD-PNL-UDMR government, which “redistributed much less money from the income taxes of the citizens of Bucharest, despite the referendum in which the citizens of the capital clearly demanded otherwise”. In November 2024, Bucharest’s citizens voted in a referendum in favour of local income tax revenues to be administered by the General Council of the Municipality of Bucharest, in order to better finance central public services such as heating or transport. The referendum is not legally binding before Parliament amends the law in accordance with the popular will. When drawing up the 2025 state budget, the government chose to ignore the outcome of the popular consultation and maintained a budget allocation formula in favour of the sector mayors, which significantly reduces the amounts redistributed to the City Hall. Moreover, 50 per cent of the income tax paid by Bucharest residents went to the sector mayors’ offices, and only 47 per cent went to the PMB, compared to 50 per cent in previous years. Three per cent was redirected to Ilfov county – a decision with no clear justification. Against this backdrop, the municipal budget contracted by some 700 million lei in 2025, compared to 2024, drastically limiting the central government’s ability to support major public services and blocking investment projects.
Mayor Nicușor Dan says that the debts accumulated in the cold part of the year are typical and that they are usually settled by the summer months. “We don’t have this money, because a government has ignored the will of the people of Bucharest and is making City Hall a kind of payment office,” says Dan. Spending on health care and public transport in Bucharest alone amounts to about 5.3 billion lei in 2025, far exceeding the City Hall’s main source of revenue, the quotas and amounts deducted from income tax. Moreover, the amounts allocated to the PMB from this source fell sharply in 2025, for the first time in the last four years.
For his part, Minister Sebastian Burduja, president of PNL Bucharest, says that the city is heading “fast towards bankruptcy”. “Today, the capital is on the brink of budgetary collapse… If we add up all of Bucharest’s current debts, we see that we are totalling somewhere around 4.7 billion lei […] which is almost half of the current year’s budget, and according to the Local Public Finance Law 273/2006, article 75, paragraph 1, letter a), this means a state of insolvency. So, after five years of Nicușor Dan’s administration, Bucharest is heading towards bankruptcy,” says Burduja. However, in December 2024, the Fitch agency reconfirmed Bucharest’s individual credit profile at “A” level, three notches above Romania’s rating and one notch above Oradea’s rating. Also in December, the same agency revised the outlook on Romania’s country rating to negative, citing political instability, a large budget deficit and a sustained increase in the country’s debt. Romania’s rating is BBB-, the most unfavourable rating in the acceptable financial risk zone for investors, and shows that Romania is a country with significant financial vulnerabilities even though it has a low risk of insolvency.
The political dispute emphasises the already significant risks not only directly for the city’s residents, but also for the future of Bucharest’s district heating system. ELCEN is at risk of going straight into bankruptcy, which would also block major projects with European funding, estimated at 361 million euros, to modernise the Progresu, Sud and Grozăvești CETs.
