Prime Minister Citu’s days may be numbered

Just a few days after being elected president of the largest centre-right party in Romania, Prime Minister Florin Citu had to make a getaway from a news conference, visibly unsettled by the questions journalists asked regarding the allies of his PNL party (EPP).

Although he managed to avoid a no-confidence vote until the party elections last weekend, Citu had no answer on questions about thenew censure motion filed by the socialists from PSD.

PSD helped PNL delay the debate regarding another censure motion filed by the centrists from USR PLUS – which quit the coalition this month – together with the far-right party AUR at the start of September, though usually a vote is held about a week after a motion is filed.

But members of PNL, together with representatives of PSD, have boycotted several meetings of the Standing Bureaus. These were supposed to set the calendar for debates and the vote on the censure motion. This resulted in another mishap, as the parliament failed to inform the government of the censure motion in due time, giving the executive a reason to attack it at the Constitutional Court.

The Constitutional Court also postponed a decision until after internal elections in PNL, scheduled for 25 September. Party members elected Citu as president against incumbent Ludovic Orban, a former prime minister and the current speaker of the Chamber of Deputies.

The court decided that the parliament had made a mistake but allowed the motion to continue its course.

Seizing the moment, PSD filed its own censure motion, as a decision on the motion of USR PLUS and AUR could be delayed once again. The Constitutional Court’s decisions are final and cannot be appealed, but a decision cannot be taken until the justification is made public.

PSD now hastened a parliament decision and adopted a calendar on their own, with a reading of the motion scheduled for Thursday and a vote due next Tuesday.

If the government loses the vote, it will continue in caretaker mode until a new cabinet gets a vote of confidence from parliament.

However, the interests of the parties that could vote for the motion differ.

PSD says it is interested only in early elections, but setting the table for these could prove almost impossible. USR PLUS claims it would like to continue in the coalition with PNL and UDMR – the ethnic Hungarian minority party – but with a different prime minister.

However, it is complicated for PNL to surrender to their junior partner’s wish just days after they supported him in becoming the party’s president and continuing as prime minister. UDMR would probably like to continue in the coalition, but traditionally it had good relations with PSD. Among the three parties that formed the government after the general elections in December 2020, it stands to lose the least as it has a stable voter base.

Citu has called USR PLUS to the discussion table though the centrist party leaders have said multiple times that they would not return to the government if he is still prime minister. At a news conference Tuesday, after a meeting of PNL’s executive bureau, Citu said the party is still standing behind him, and he is waiting to negotiate with USR PLUS.

When journalists reminded him that USR PLUS does not want him at the helm of the government, Citu repeated that PNL is open to cooperation with USR PLUS until they vote against the government. As journalists pressed on potential alliances to gain the confidence vote, Citu stormed out of the conference a mere three minutes after it started.

Although the news conference was organised after a party meeting, the government sent an official note explaining that the prime minister interrupted the news conference because journalists were not interested in his statements.

(Bogdan Neagu | EURACTIV.ro)