Vlad Voiculescu, head of office for the Minister of Public Finance Anca Dragu, is the new Minister of Health. On the 20^th of May, Klaus Iohannis appointed him to take over the ministry, after PM Dacian Ciolos' nomination. 

With a background of over 10 years in financial consultancy in Vienna, where he administrated international financing projects of health infrastructure, but also energy and transportation, he returned to Romania at the beginning of 2016. 

The Ministry of Environment recommended the Government to support an initiative to forbid cyanide based mining for gold and silver and declared that the Government will finalize its official position on the matter, currently in progress, but it will play a consultative role for the members of the Parliament.

The legislative proposal for modifying the Law of mining 85/2003 by forbidding cyanide based mining for gold and silver has been sitting in the Parliament for some years now. The Senate rejected the initiative in 2013, when the economic and also finance committees of deputies forwarded a negative notice.

The recent scandal of disinfectants used in the Romanian hospitals was the last piece in a series of crisis that the ministry led by Patriciu Achimas-Cadariu had to manage, ending up with a resignation on the 9^th of May.

On the 6^th of May, President Klaus Iohannis was requesting from the Ministry of Health a more exact analysis, and a clearer emergency plan to address the issue of diluted disinfectant substances used in the hospitals and provided by a local company Hexy Pharma. Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos, on the other hand, was stating on Friday, May 5^th that he was not considering changing the minister, but finding actual solutions and preventing other problems that might occur.

Ana Raducu, the minister of European Funds, stepped down from her position after Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos requested her resignation. According to the press release of the Ministry of European Funds, the Prime minister was disappointed in her activity when it comes to short term objectives. The projects she initiated are currently being implemented and represent over 40% of the 2014-2020 allocations – five programs worth 20 billion EUR from EU funds, and national co-financing. Ciolos accepted her resignation and will nominate a new minister to President Klaus Iohannis.

Augustin Lazar has been nominated by the Minister of Justice for the position of General Prosecutor of Romania. The proposition, altogether with the positive notice from the Superior Council of Magistrates (CSM) after his successful interview, go directly to the President of Romania for final approval and appointment.

During his interview with CSM he presented a managerial project that aims to reset the Public Ministry in order to solve the large number of files: “The Managerial project proposes to reform the Public Ministry and enhance it to European standards when it comes to management, and mentality. The project is based on a profound knowledge of this Ministry, that comes not only from experience, but also from the researcher activity I have had as a professor”, he confessed.

Romanian labor ministry, Claudia-Ana Costea, resigned on April 14, 2016, after a scandal concerning the project the law regarding the salaries of the employees in the public sector. On April 18, 2016, Dragos Nicolae Pislaru was appointed as the new Ministry of Labor in the Ciolos Government. Pislaru was previously counsellor of the Prime Minister. He is an economist, graduate from of the Economic Studies in Bucharest where he was also a lecturer, and of the School of Economics and Political Science in London. He was an associate researcher at Romanian Center for economic Policies, and executive director within the Group of Applied Economy.

Finalizing a unitary salary law was one of the objectives assumed by the Ministry of Labor at the beginning of the mandate. The finalizing term was supposed to be October 2016. After being subject to several changes of deadlines, and at least ten different forms where the Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Economy, Commerce and Relations with the Business Sector, Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration, Ministry of Justice, and syndicates have participated, the final draft of the law, that was supposed to be implemented in 4 years, kept the principle that no salary needs to drop, and the report between the minimum and the maximum wages have to be 1/15. 

Technical surveillance warrants ordered in criminal proceedings were adopted on March 11, 2016 through a government ordinance in a special sitting.

With the use of the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) infrastructure, the prosecutors and criminal investigation bodies will be the only competent for enforcing the wiretapping warrants during criminal investigations, with direct use of technical systems and appropriate procedures. The Criminal Procedure Code, the Judicial Organization Law, the Statutes of the Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) and the SRI Statutes were all ammended in order to make room for new regulations.