Government reshuffle in Bucharest

The newly appointed defence and economy ministers, the Social Democrats Mihai Fifor and Gheorghe Şimon, respectively, took the oath of office on Tuesday.

Bogdan Matei, 13.09.2017, 13:52

Shortly after being sworn in, in late June, the Romanian Government Coalition, formed by the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Romania, has already being reshuffled. The former economy minister Mihai Fifor takes over the defence portfolio and MP Gheorghe Şimon replaces him at the helm of the economy ministry. The Social Democrats say Fifor’s responsible activity as economy minister was the main reason for his being nominated for the defence portfolio. The new and equally old minister considers, in his turn, that his best recommendation for the position is the experience he has acquired in the army endowment programs, following a fruitful cooperation between the two ministries.

Mihai Fifor: ” I am already familiar with the problems the ministry is now facing and I hope to be able to start working and accomplishing everything we want to achieve, mainly our main priority of equipping the Romanian Army, in partnership with the Economy Ministry, the Romanian defence industry, a sector of the national industry which is high performing and which should be the main equipment provider for the Romanian Army.”

Experience is also the key word recommending the vice-president of the Economic Policy, Reform and Privatisation Committee of the Chamber of Deputies for the position of economy minister, his party leaders say.

Gheorghe Şimon: “Strictly speaking about the Economy Ministry, we are working on a series of laws such as the mining law, the mineral waters law and royalties.”

Also mentioning the word “experience”, the press in Bucharest notes that Şimon is the majority shareholder in a factory based in his native county of Maramureş, in the northwest, a factory which was once considered very modern but for which bankruptcy procedures have already commenced. Furthermore, there are speculations on the replacement of the defence minister. The President of the National Liberal Party, in opposition, Ludovic Orban, has accused the government of no longer being willing to comply with the commitment it has made, namely to allot 2% of the GDP for Army endowment.

The former defence minister, Adrian Ţuţuianu, resigned one week ago, after Prime Minister Mihai Tudose reproached him for having failed to communicate information on the payment of the allowances and salaries of the military staff and of the civilians working in the army. The Defence Ministry had announced that its employees would receive only allowances and salaries and not the meal allowances this month and that the contributions for their social insurance and income tax would not be paid to the state budget.

Both the Prime Minister and the finance minister were quick to deny the announcement made by the Defence Ministry, saying there are no difficulties relative to the payment of salaries. Some political commentators see Tutuianu’s resignation as a settling of accounts within the Social Democratic Party, where two power poles have allegedly crystallised, one around the prime minister and another one around the party president, Liviu Dragnea.

In exchange, economic analysts fear that the misunderstanding at the Defence Ministry might actually be a sign of a real shortage of funds and that, in spite of a record high economic growth rate, the government might not be able to honour the generous promises the Social Democrats made in the election campaign.