The Week in Review, June 12-18

A look at the main stories in Romania this past week

Roxana Vasile, 17.06.2017, 14:07

Political crisis in Romania

The Romanian political scene is facing these days a crisis of unprecedented magnitude in nearly three decades of post-communist democracy. Here is how the recent events have unfolded: both members of the ruling coalition, the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Romania (ALDE), decided on Wednesday to withdraw their political support for Prime Minister Sorin Grindeau, a decision followed by the resignation of all Cabinet members. The Social Democrat leader Liviu Dragnea voiced dissatisfaction with the performance of some of the Cabinet members, saying that 60% of the objectives included in the governing programme had not been fulfilled.

Liviu Dragnea: “The Social Democratic Party, together with our colleagues in ALDE, is prepared to form a new Cabinet, which will have a much better structured roadmap, including measures to make up for the delays so far. If we carry on like this, with or without Sorin Grindeanu as a Prime Minister, in 3 months time we risk seeing the governing programme a document almost impossible to implement.

The Prime Ministers reaction, however, came as a surprise:

Sorin Grindeanu: “I will not resign! And I can tell you exactly why! I have a responsibility towards Romania and the party I am a member of. I believe we should all feel responsible for this, and I most certainly do!

Sorin Grindeanu has also stated that he will resign only if Liviu Dragnea resigns too, blaming the latter for the current political crisis, and only after the president of the country, Klaus Iohannis, appoints a new Social Democrat Prime Minister. Therefore, the Social Democratic Party has announced that Sorin Grindeanu will be excluded from the party and that, together with ALDE, will introduce a motion of non-confidence in its own Cabinet, the only way to force the Prime Minister to leave, given the latters refusal to resign.

In the meantime, Romanias President Klaus Iohannis has called on the two coalition parties to find a solution to the internal crisis that led to withdrawing support for the Grindeanu Government. Here is the presidency spokesperson Madalina Dobrovolschi:

Madalina Dobrovolschi: “The president calls for an urgent settling of the crisis that occurred inside the ruling coalition, in order to avoid political instability. Resolving this internal crisis is strictly the responsibility of the parties that make up the coalition.

In response to the current situation, the Liberals, in opposition, have stated that they will decide what stand to take after a constitutional solution is found to the crisis. The Save Romania Union has called for early elections, and the Peoples Movement Party has stated that the Social Democrats should take responsibility for the failure of their governing agenda.

Miners raids of June 1990

Partly shadowed by the current political crisis in Romania, the case of the so called “miners raids of June 1990 came back to public attention exactly on June 13th, when Romania commemorated 27 years since the stifling of a large-scale rally against the left-wing power installed after the fall of the communist regime in December 1989. On Tuesday, 14 people, including Romanias first post-communist president Ion Iliescu and prime minister Petre Roman and the former head of the Romanian Intelligence Service Virgil Magureanu were charged with crimes against humanity. On June 13-15, 1990, against the background of some extremely violent clashes in Bucharest, which the army had already managed to stifle, president Ion Iliescu blamed the right-wing of attempting a coup and called on civilians to defend the democratic institutions of the state. In response to the call, miners from Jiu Valley came to Bucharest and stormed the University building and the headquarters of the opposition parties and of independent newspapers. The toll of the violent clashes of June 13-15 was four officially recorded deaths, hundreds of wounded and more than one thousand people arrested abusively. Romanias image abroad was severely damaged, too. The military prosecutors indictment reads that illegally involved in this attack were forces of the Interior Ministry and the Defense Ministry, Intelligence Service units as well as over 10,000 miners and other workers. Among other things, Ion Iliescu is accused of having ordered the army to use war armament and ammunition against civilians.

New salary raises

Now that the new salary law for public sector employees is about to be promulgated, several categories of public personnel that have not benefited from pay rises for a long time, will get more money too. On Tuesday, the Romanian Chamber of Deputies endorsed a bill under which the employees of public libraries, of the Agriculture and Culture Ministries, part of the public healthcare personnel, active military and civilian personnel with the Defence Ministry will benefit from increased salaries. Statistics show that Romanian employees salaries have increased by 13.4% on average in the past year, reaching the equivalent of some 520 Euro in April.

The International Theatre Festival in Sibiu

Sunday is the last day of the International Theatre Festival hosted by the city of Sibiu, in central Romania. For ten days, thousands of spectators have had the opportunity to watch some 500 performances and cultural events included in the festivals agenda. The entire city, but also other places across the county of Sibiu were turned into theatre venues, hosting some 3,000 artists. One of the special guests to this years edition was the famous Russian-born ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, who said he was very much impressed with the festival.

(translated by: Mihaela Ignatescu)