Nicolae Ciucă, PM designate once again 

Nicolae Ciucă was designated by president Klaus Iohannis to form a new government

Corina Cristea, 23.11.2021, 14:00

At the end of a third round of talks with the parliamentary
parties in the almost three months since USR left the ruling coalition, the
head of state once again designated the interim defence minister Nicolae Ciucă to
form a new government.

Klaus
Iohannis: I am satisfied that there is a robust majority in the Parliament
of Romania, a majority consisting of the National Liberal Party, the Social
Democratic Party, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania and the ethnic
minorities group. They nominated a PM and I accepted this nomination. I will therefore
designate Mr. Nicolae Ciucă to form a government team and to come before
Parliament for a confidence vote.

Nicolae
Ciucă was previously designated for the post on October 21, but he stepped down
after a minority coalition made up of the National Liberal Party and the Democratic
Union of Ethnic Hungarians failed to secure enough votes in Parliament for
endorsement.

This time
around, extensive negotiations led to an agreement on the governing programme, a
new Cabinet structure (with two new ministries) and the concept of a rotation
of prime ministers between the Liberals and the Social Democrats.

Nicolae
Ciucă said Romanians expect the new government to provide stability and
solutions for the difficulties entailed by the pandemic and the energy crunch,
and voiced hopes that the new team will get to work thoroughly as of Thursday.

The Liberals
will have eight ministries in the new government. They are keeping the foreign
and interior ministries, the education ministry and the energy ministry, and
will head four more, including justice, and the ministry for European funds and
investments.

Not all
Liberals are happy with this scenario, however, and senior party members are criticizing
their leader’s handling of the negotiations. Florin Cîţu argues however that
the coalition with the Social Democrats is not unconditional, and promises that
citizens’ interests and financial stability will not be compromised.

After a
stint in the opposition, the Social Democrats will head nine ministries plus
the Government secretariat general. Important fields are included, such as the public
finances, defence, transports and economy.

The PM
rotation order was one of the most passionately debated issues. The Social
Democrats eventually agreed to take their turn at the helm of the cabinet in 18
months’ time. The party president Marcel Ciolacu explained that the Social
Democrats agreed to back the Liberal’s PM nominee in return for the inclusion
of important social support measures in the governing programme.

In turn, UDMR
will have a deputy PM post in the Ciucă Cabinet, alongside with the three
ministries they are already heading-regional development, environment and
sports.

The USR would
not attend the consultations with the president, and leader Dacian Cioloş argued
that president Klaus Iohannis renounced his role as a mediator. Also in
opposition, AUR mentioned they would not endorse the new government in
Parliament. (tr. A.M. Popescu)