Romania’s labor minister Ana Costea (center) handed in her resignation on Thursday, April 14. Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos accepted her resignation and said he would name another person for this position in the following period, according to a Government press release.

Ana Costea is the first minister who leaves former European Commissioner Dacian Ciolos’ technocrat cabinet, which started its mandate in November 2015.

The labor minister resigned after controversies on the new law on wages in the public sector. The Government should have discussed an emergency ordinance draft on public workers’ salaries, on Wednesday.

However, the draft was withdrawn from the agenda, after the Labor Ministry and the union leaders failed to reach an agreement on the proposed changes. Labor minister Ana Costea told the union leaders that she would resign if the Government decided to discuss the current draft.

She went on with her decision and resigned, although the Government decided to withdraw the project.

The Government promised that it would come up with a new ordinance proposal that would take into consideration the unions’ requests as well as the budgetary constraints for 2016 and 2017.

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editor@romania-insider.com