Dragoș Pîslaru and Florin Manole accuse each other regarding the lists of deceased people reported to the European Commission as having been deinstitutionalized

Former acting Minister of Labor, Dragoș Pîslaru, rejects the accusations made by the current minister, Florin Manole, according to which the Liberal allegedly reported deceased people to the European Commission as having been deinstitutionalized, which could lead to the loss of PNRR funds.

Pîslaru claims that the list publicly presented by Manole is the one drawn up on June 30 and signed by Alexandra Zară, the former president of the National Authority for the Protection of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

“Mr. Manole accuses me of having reported ‘deceased people’ to the European Commission in order to check off a PNRR target concerning the deinstitutionalization of persons with disabilities. What he ‘forgets’ to mention is that the list of ‘dead people’ he is waving around on television is the list from June 30, drawn up and signed by Ms. Zară, the former president of the NAPPRD, appointed and supported by the PSD,” Pîslaru wrote on Facebook.

He states that, after the leadership changed, the data were verified, and the report submitted on August 31 indicated 3,976 eligible people, without the previously identified death cases.

The former minister also says that he neither signed nor personally sent reports to the European Commission and that, in the spring of 2026, the PNRR target was renegotiated to 4,000 people, with a minimum threshold of 3,800.

Florin Manole said on Monday that the European Commission’s checks had identified 478 non-compliant cases, including deceased people, people who had been transferred, or people without supporting documents. According to the minister, the actual figure would be 3,498 people, and the financial correction for Romania is inevitable. The dispute concerns responsibility for the reporting and the method of calculating the deinstitutionalization target.