Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the collapse of Romania’s government, competing claims over the Strait of Hormuz, and Armenia shifting closer to the European Union.

Opposing Romanian lawmakers joined together on Tuesday to oust center-right Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan in a no-confidence motion. Passed with 281 votes in favor, far above the 233 needed for his removal, the motion triggers fresh turmoil in one of Europe’s most economically vulnerable nations.

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the collapse of Romania’s government, competing claims over the Strait of Hormuz, and Armenia shifting closer to the European Union.

Opposing Romanian lawmakers joined together on Tuesday to oust center-right Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan in a no-confidence motion. Passed with 281 votes in favor, far above the 233 needed for his removal, the motion triggers fresh turmoil in one of Europe’s most economically vulnerable nations.

Romania is no stranger to political instability. In December 2024, authorities annulled the country’s far-right presidential election victory, citing allegations of Russian interference and campaign fraud. Since then, Bucharest has struggled to curtail rampant inflation, one of the European Union’s highest budget deficits, and rising hard-right nationalism.

Bolojan’s four-party coalition vowed to address Romania’s deficit crisis upon taking power in June. However, one of his party’s key allies, the leftist Social Democratic Party (PSD), quickly became disenchanted with Bolojan’s unpopular austerity measures. In response, the left-wing party abandoned the coalition last month to jointly submit a no-confidence motion with the hard-right opposition Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR).

Romania needs a leader who is “capable of collaboration,” the PSD argued last week, accusing Bolojan of “failing to implement any genuine reform” during his 10 months in office.

Bolojan’s party hit back, accusing the PSD and AUR of playing “political theater.” “You cannot overthrow a government and then run away from accountability,” Dan Motreanu, the secretary-general of Bolojan’s party, wrote on Facebook. Bolojan, himself,........

© Foreign Policy