GAS- Socialist Action Group (ISp affiliate in Romania)
On June 25, 2025, several student associations announced a protest through ANOSR (National Alliance of Student Organizations in Romania) against the austerity measures proposed by the new Bolojan government. The protests took place the following day in seven cities: Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara, Alba-Iulia, Iași, Baia Mare and Suceava. The number of participants was approximately 50-100 in Bucharest and 100-200 in Cluj-Napoca, with no approximate figures available for the other cities.
At first glance, it was mainly ANOSR (students organizations federation) and other student organisations that mobilised, as the protest was announced at very short notice. This is a welcome move, given that student participation in policies that affect them is not a given—building student mobilisation and intervention capacity remains an urgent need. To this end, student protests need to be planned with a view to ensuring that they are as mass-based as possible.
The reason announced by the associations was as follows:
“The government has calculated that scholarships are to blame for the budget deficit!
ANOSR, together with student leaders from all university centres in the country, is organising a protest on Thursday, 26 June 2025, starting at 10:00 a.m., against the government’s intention to drastically reduce the funds allocated to scholarships.
Under the proposed change, the scholarship fund would be based on the net minimum wage, rather than the gross minimum wage, as currently provided for in Higher Education Law No. 199/2023. This change would mean a decrease in the scholarship fund of approximately 40% and, implicitly, a significant reduction in the number of beneficiaries.
Students take to the streets! Scholarships are not a source of wealth, dear politicians!”
Austerity hits students (too)
On June 26, despite the exam and assessment period, many students left their homes to join the mobilization of the student organisations to which they belong, with non-affiliated students spontaneously joining them. The protests were focused against scholarship cuts, more specifically against their indexation to the net minimum wage (not the gross minimum wage, as is the case for the moment). The scholarships, however, were already frozen for years at the gross minimum wage level, before its increase in 2024. Once again, we are shown how, in the face of economic crises, the ruling class imposes austerity to maintain its profits, while those of us who work and study pay the price.
As we well know, these austerity measures began in the first month of the year and continued with measures targeting those who work for the state. The concept of “budgeteers” [those who are paid by the state budget] was used to hide the class differences between institution directors/capital administrators and those who are forced to sell their labour to make a living in the public sector – civil servants, teachers, doctors, state employees, etc.
Of course, the promises of cuts in the budgetary system did not mean that the former (directors, politicians) would be affected in any way, as everyone who seemed to welcome the measures probably hoped (but probably realised it was a false hope later). Budget cuts and unpopular policies, as Bolojan (the prime-minister of Romania) called them, are an affront to all those who work. More specifically, these measures involve capping bonuses, reducing the period of unemployment benefits, reducing the number of hospital beds, cutting social assistance, cutting places for assistance for people with disabilities, reducing sick leave pay, revision of the labour code, modification of “social dialogue” and revision of the CCM (collective labour agreement) which provides for so-called exaggerated rights (editor’s note: if anyone knows of such cases personally, please write to us, because we have not yet met any workers with “exaggerated rights”).
The government is giving all sorts of excuses for budget cuts, for example citing cases where people are taking advantage of disability benefits without having any disability. But this is a facade. The cuts are an attack on the majority, on working families and on the most vulnerable in society.
Students’ motivations
According to the students, they are taking to the streets because they see these cuts as part of a general trend: first the cutting of free transport for students, then the reduction of free travel to 90% subsidised travel, then 90% subsidised travel exclusively for those studying in another city, applying only to the route between their hometown and the city where they study. Both students who receive scholarships and students who came in solidarity gathered in the square. Young people fear that they will not be able to continue their studies, either because they will have to find employment due to rising inflation combined with these scholarship cuts, or because of the aforementioned trend of cutting tax free student places. The students say they are outraged and expect even more cuts and attacks on their rights if they do not react.
The trend observed by students is real, and it is more prevalent in the workplaces. Without a continuation of these movements and joint struggle with workers affected by austerity and vice versa, we can only lose. The struggle is between social needs and capital. Protest is a necessary and essential step in this struggle.
Money, for what?
Most students said that their scholarship money goes towards rent, books, utilities and food, but they also see scholarships as an incentive to perform well. Their biggest concern is that they will not be able to continue their studies if these scholarships, which are already insufficient to live in a city like Bucharest or Cluj, are reduced. Another problem is that these cuts are putting even more pressure on their parents to support them in college. This is favourable to employers in large cities: students without scholarships represent a cheap and highly trained workforce that is easily accessible.
However, this is not the only problem: one of the students, whose multiple acquaintances led them to give up higher education because they could not afford the fees, compared the scholarship system in Romania with that in France and argued that “there are more social scholarships there and they are much higher than in Romania, scholarships exist to make education possible for anyone who wants it, and those who perform well do so without this additional motivation.”
The budget deficit, a responsibility of the ruling class
The protesting students clearly believe that these scholarship cuts are not even a real solution to the deficit, arguing that the deficit percentage is far too high for an expenditure of 0.04% of GDP to have any impact. They believe that it may look like it helps on paper, but they see this approach as flawed, failing to take into account many other factors such as the welfare of the people and students. They also criticise the fact that cuts are not being made to high-level government positions, such as politicians holding multiple jobs, and that the military budget is being increased at the expense of the population’s welfare. They believe that the deficit is a real problem and that the blame lies largely with past governments – from Băsescu to the current government – but they believe that the issue cannot be viewed in such simplistic terms, as several factors need to be taken into account.
The budget deficit is not a neutral or technical issue. The budget deficit stems from the very logic of capital accumulation, the logic of profit. Social spending (education, health, public services) is considered unproductive from the perspective of profit maximisation, and this reduction arises from the inability to simultaneously satisfy the requirements for profit maximisation and social needs. The deficit is used politically to justify austerity, which does not solve the crisis but deepens it. If the value produced by workers (those who produce surplus value, extracted through profit and taxes) does not go to education, scholarships, hospitals, it goes elsewhere, it does not disappear. Where does it go? Into the pockets of the ruling class, for their own interests, towards armament. This process is also connected to the gradual privatisation of the healthcare system, towards the privatisation of public transport in order to change its role of social reproduction (hardly won by workers) towards the logic of profit maximisation.
Solidarity, the key to real change
Although protest is an essential first step, the struggle cannot stop there. It is necessary to bring a critical mass of students onto the streets and to use more disruptive means than simple street protests. Student strikes and walkouts are examples that can be put into practice by organisations that have an adequate mobilisation network when classes resume in the autumn.
Given that the proposed policies directly affect both workers and students this time around, mutual support and joint struggle to fight austerity could only yield concrete results through an alliance between trade unions, students and unorganised workers to create a powerful social force. Student organisations must maintain an active dialogue with trade unions and coordinate with organised workers’ initiatives to increase the chances of victory.
There is no other way. After all, all the rights we have today were won through struggle. From the 8-hour working day to maternity leave, unemployment benefits, health insurance, as well as workplace safety regulations and the prohibition of discrimination in employment.
What do we put in place of cuts?
The students gave multiple examples on this question: cutting parliamentary expenses, MPs’ salaries and benefits, increasing taxes on alcohol and sugar-made products, tax reform so that Romania is no longer a quasi-tax haven, ect. Students also suggested improving conditions in universities and offering jobs to students in their final years.
Their answers clearly show a desire to improve not only the standard of living for the majority, but also study and working conditions. Although the protest is about one thing, it seems that students are going beyond demands that affect them exclusively economically and are asking for conditions that the government is unable (and/or unwilling) to deliver.
Conclusions
When asked if they think things would be different if someone else were in power, most students responded that they would not, or that if such an option existed, that party does not yet exist. Some pointed out that there might not be some excesses, but the trend would be the same with a PSD (social-democratic party) government or a USR-dominated (deregulation-crazed right wing party) government.
These responses show us two things:
1. The continued existence of a political vacuum in Romania that is waiting to be filled by a political formation of workers to represent themselves;
2. A lack of trust in the current system. We cannot pretend that this response shows anything other than that the capitalist system is in crisis, both economically and in terms of credibility in the eyes of the majority of society. The search for alternatives is not only imminent, it is already here. In order to emancipate ourselves, we must fight together for our own interests, which are increasingly at odds with those of our bosses and their administrators in government and parliament.
The vote against the far right, which presents itself as an alternative, together with the protests that have gained momentum, shows us once again the general dissatisfaction not with one party or another, but with the way society works. This highlights the need to organise and create a party through which we, as workers, can represent ourselves in order to change it.
Given the need to resolve the budget deficit, there is no political formation ready to take on capital to resolve it any other way than by affecting the working masses. And this is not only due to a lack of political will, but also generally to a lack of organisation among workers to impose it. Such an alternative can only be built over time, through practice and efforts to understand the world we live in and the reasons why such crises occur periodically.
For those who stay at home and complain/rejoice that ‘students are getting what they voted for,’ we remind them that these policies affect them too, and resentment only leads to division, and through division, the proposed policies are likely to be imposed on the whole of society, not just students. The students and the majority of Romanians who voted, voted – as some of the students said – once again for what they considered to be the ‘lesser evil’.
As we said in our statement after the elections, the policies supported by Nicușor Dan and the government formed by Bolojan will push the population even further towards resistance and revolt.
We repeat: united action against these measures is imperative. In the absence of a mass workers’ party that can represent the class for itself and fight for its interests, the current austerity measures will only push the population towards the reactionary opposition. And the opposition, far from being even a semblance of an alternative, has already compromised itself, not only by showing itself to be just as eager to impose the same measures against workers, but by being even more fervent in favour of them—in this regard, see the Far-right leader Simion reference to 500,000 “parasites” (civil servants), tax cuts for employers, the destruction of benefits won by workers through underfunding, and many other blatantly anti-worker policy proposals by the Far-right.
As austerity policies are implemented by the current leadership, the contradictions of capitalist society will become more pronounced at all levels. We expect opposition from workers (organised or otherwise), but also from other affected social strata, to continue to intensify. Student protests are evidence of this dynamic, and as long as the representatives of capital cannot respond to the demands expressed in the streets, the student movement should expand. For the efforts to advance the interests of students to bear fruit, it will be necessary not only for the protests to receive increasing support, but also for bridges to be built between the student and labour movements by identifying common class interests.
