The Cornești merger, repealed in June by the town council itself after the State Chancellery flagged an unlawful perimeter, has returned to the table in repaired form — and has entered its public phase. The Cornești town hall announced on Thursday, July 16, a public consultation on the draft decision for the voluntary amalgamation of Cornești town with Cornești village and Bumbăta village. Recommendations and proposals are accepted until July 28, through an online form linked to the announcement.
This time, the arithmetic is no longer the problem. Cornești town has 1.654 residents, Cornești commune — 1.166, and Bumbăta commune — 1.244, according to preliminary figures from the National Bureau of Statistics as of January 1, 2026. Together: 4.064 — more than a thousand above the threshold of 3.000 residents that the law has firmly required since April 30. The first attempt, with the villages of Poiana and Mircești taken from Boghenii Noi commune, failed precisely here: the perimeter was unlawful, and the town together with Cornești village mustered only 2.820 people.
The idea, in fact, belongs to Cornești village
The decisions published in the State Register of Local Acts reveal a surprising order of events: the current trio is not the town’s invention. Cornești village council voted as early as December 5, 2025, on a proposal from mayor Iurie Țurcanu, to initiate the amalgamation in exactly this configuration. Bumbăta village council followed on May 27, on a proposal from mayor Gheorghe Paladi — a month before the State Chancellery flagged the town’s old perimeter. Only on June 30, after the Chancellery’s notification, did the town council led by mayor Angela Vatamaniuc align itself with the two villages’ perimeter, by 11 votes out of 11.
Still standing in the same register, unrepealed, is a May 27 decision by Cornești village accepting the old perimeter — the one declared unlawful — a trace of the winding road this merger has travelled.
The race against July 31
The draft decision put out for consultation — the document that states, under the law, which locality becomes the administrative centre of the future unit — has been public on the official platform particip.gov.md since July 14, together with the consultation announcement. The administrative centre is not a free choice: the law ties it to criteria, among them the number of residents and fiscal capacity per resident, and the draft states that Cornești town obtained the highest score when they were applied. The draft does not ask for a different name for the amalgamated unit than that of the administrative centre — it would be called Cornești town.
The calendar is tight. The Government has announced, through Secretary General Alexei Buzu, that the voluntary phase of amalgamation ends on July 31, with the “normative” stage — mandatory for localities under 3.000 residents — starting in August. Taken separately, all three would fall below the threshold. After the consultation closes on July 28, the three councils would have three working days for the final vote — the law requires each council to adopt the decision with the votes of a majority of its elected councillors, and the town hall of the locality chosen as administrative centre to dispatch the file to the State Chancellery within five days of adoption. The July 31 deadline, however, does not appear in the law: the Congress of Local Authorities (CALM) argues it has no legal basis and regards it as pressure on local democracy.
If the Chancellery’s opinion is favourable, it drafts the corresponding bill and submits it to the Government, and the merger is enacted through a law voted by Parliament; the new administrative-territorial unit comes into being when the law enters into force — followed, within at most 30 days, by the setting of a date for fresh local elections for the mayor and council of the whole perimeter.
Residents of the town and the two villages can send their recommendations until July 28 through the form published on the Facebook page of the Cornești town hall. The decisional transparency law also gives them the right to request the full draft decision, accompanying materials included, from the town hall that initiated it.
Correction — 18 July 2026
In the initial version of this article we wrote that the draft decision had not been published together with the announcement and that the outcome of the administrative-centre calculation was not public. On checking the file on the official platform particip.gov.md, we found that both statements were wrong: draft decision no. 7/1, which designates Cornești town as the administrative centre and keeps the name, had been public there since July 14, together with the consultation announcement. We have corrected the passage; the draft’s contents are covered in a separate article. The stake described in the article — the merger’s tight calendar — stands unchanged. We correct our mistakes in public.