The no-confidence motion of the National Liberal Party is read out in Parliament

The fate of the government led by the Liberal Florin Cîțu depends on Tuesdays vote in Parliament.

Roxana Vasile, 01.10.2021, 13:50

As things stand, the days of the current government are
numbered. A no-confidence motion initiated by the Social Democratic Party and
read out on Thursday is to be debated and put to the vote on Tuesday, 5th
October.

Voting in favour of the motion will be the Social
Democrats, the ultranationalist Alliance for the Union of Romanians and, also,
it appears, USR-PLUS, a party that until not long ago was part of the coalition
government together with the National Liberal Party and the Democratic Union of
Ethnic Hungarians in Romania. That would make for 280 votes, much more than the
234 needed for the motion to pass. The MPs of USR-PLUS were not in the room
when the motion was read out, a document in which they are also criticised, and
the Liberals are still hoping that they will change their minds by voting day.
For the time being, however, USR-PLUS seems determined to go all the way to get
rid of Florin Cîțu as prime minister.

In their no-confidence motion, the Social Democrats
are accusing the coalition government of incompetence and wasting public money.
Their leader in the Chamber of Deputies, Alfred Simonis, read out the document:

Every day with the Cîţu government in power is another
day when the lives of Romanians are affected by poverty, the development of the
local communities blocked and the future of the country marked by toxic
borrowing that will sacrifice entire future generations.

The Social Democratic Party also says electricity and
natural gas bills exploded, that 7 million Romanians are sentenced to poverty,
that the absorption of European funds is insignificant and the management of
the pandemic compromised. Convinced that their motion will pass, the Social
Democrats say the only solution to the current political crisis are a technocratic
government and early elections.

Florin Cîţu has responded by accusing his political
adversaries of wanting to blow up the country and bringing down the government instead
of thinking of solutions for the people. He is sure he will stay on as prime
minister. However, even if the Social Democrats’ motion fails, there’s another one against his government
pending in Parliament, initiated by USR-PLUS and the Alliance for the Union of
Romanians, and which the Social Democrats said they would vote for. In this
motion, the prime minister is accused of being incapable of running a coalition
government and overcoming narrow party logic and of seeming determined to
sacrifice general interest and the welfare of the country’s citizens. (CM)