The ruling Social Democratic Party of Romania (PSD) withdrew from post-election negotiations to form a coalition government, but is willing to support a pro-European center-right minority government in parliament. Acting Prime Minister and PSD leader Marcel Ciolacu stated this on his Facebook account on Thursday. TASR informs about it based on the reports of Agerpres and MTI agencies.
“You can’t build anything concrete with people who say one thing in private and another in front of the press. You won’t do anything with so-called partners who hate sitting at the table with you and who think that they will get ‘dirty’ like this,” stated Ciolacu.
According to him, the PSD tolerated such attitudes for a long time without fuss. “PSD leaves the negotiating table with dignity, but does not run away from responsibility. She is ready to vote for a right-wing minority government in parliament,” said Ciolacu.
PSD: The country urgently needs a government
He added that the PSD is doing this because Romania urgently needs a government that would solve the current problems until the upcoming presidential elections.
Ciolacu was reacting to the fact that the president of the center-right Union for the Rescue of Romania (USR), Elena Lasconi, walked out of negotiations on a new government to be formed by pro-European parties on Wednesday evening, and made USR’s participation in the coalition conditional on the fulfillment of an eight-point list of conditions. The politician, who came second in the canceled first round of the presidential election, accused the potential coalition partners – PSD, the National Liberal Party (PNL), the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) and representatives of national minorities – of not understanding the voters’ message from the election. held on December 1.
After the resignation of the PSD, the remnants of the “pro-European coalition” in the legislature have less than 40 percent of the seats. This coalition was formed to act as a counterbalance to Calin Georgesc, whom it described as pro-Russian. He was, according to polls, the favorite to be elected in the presidential elections before the constitutional court annulled the results of the first round, saying that an internet campaign from Russia helped Georgesco the creation of the coalition was an effort to prevent parties that, according to it, represent the extreme right – the Alliance for the Unification of Romanians (AUR), SOS Romania and the Party of Young People (POT) from entering the government.
