Talks on the future cabinet

The Social Democrats are still holding talks on the governing programme and the membership of the new cabinet.

Bogdan Matei, 23.01.2018, 13:32

After one year of technocratic government
in Romania, in December 2016, the Social Democratic Party won a landslide
victory in the parliamentary elections and took over power, again, alongside
the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Romania. This time however, it has
turned out that it is more difficult for the Social Democratic Party to govern
the country than it was expected by its members, supporters and opponents alike.

Last summer, the party marked a first in
Romanian post-communist politics, bringing down its own cabinet, led by Sorin
Grindeanu, through a no-confidence vote in Parliament. This month, the
Social-Democratic leadership withdrew its political support for prime minister
Mihai Tudose and designated MEP Viorica Dancila to replace him. The list of
nominations for Dancila’s cabinet will be established by vote by the leadership
of the Social Democratic Party on Friday, the party president, Liviu Dragnea,
has announced.

The media in Bucharest say two thirds of
the incumbent ministers are likely to keep their seats. It is clear, however,
that the Social-Democrats have decided to update the governing programme they
promoted in the election campaign, without however modifying the measures
included in the document. Liviu Dragnea:

We will firmly maintain the objectives
we have set both during the election campaign and in the governing programme,
and adopted in Parliament in January and re-adopted, with small modifications,
in summer, namely to observe the important macro-economic indicators, which we
did in 2017, despite untruthful predictions saying the opposite. We also
maintain our major goal, that of bringing more money into Romanians’ pockets,
and the pension and salary rises we have announced and adopted will go ahead as
planned, and in some cases even better than planned.

The leader of the Alliance of Liberals
and Democrats, Calin Popescu-Tariceanu, has also made promises of his own:

We will not take new fiscal measures,
such things haven’t been envisaged. Our talks with the Social Democratic Party
have mainly focused on ways to simplify legislation and the existing
procedures, for the Romanian economy, which is based on low-level taxation, to
foster a friendly business environment, that is fewer and simpler procedures
when it comes to the economic environment.

The right-wing National Liberal Party, in
opposition, says Parliament should prevent the installation of a new left-wing
government. Liberal leader Ludovic Orban:

The national currency, leu, is at its
weakest level. Since the government took office, inflation has been spiralling
out of control, prices are on the rise, the government does not have the
necessary budget resources to raise people’s salaries and incomes, and what has
the Social Democratic Party been doing all this time? They fight over the bone,
they scratch their eyes out over what local big shot wants their people in what ministry.

The governing programme and the
membership of the Dancila cabinet will be voted by Parliament on Monday,
January 29.