Amid growing tension between ruling Social Democrat leadership and Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu, the latter posted a message on Facebook on Sunday evening, a post full of hints related to this mounting row.
After being criticized by more SocDem leaders in the past days, PM Grindeanu said in the post that Romania needs stability and predictability, and that Romanians’ vote in December has shown their need for a stable government, with large parliamentary support. In his view, the confidence granted by the voters must not be “cheated by new changes, new political crises, and potentially new elections”.
“Romania has today several opportunities, which can decisively lead us on the path of progress and prosperity. But for this we need stability and predictability. The vote of December 2016 showed us that Romanians, too, want the same thing: a stable government with large parliamentary support. This confidence that Romanians granted us cannot be cheated with new changes, new political crises, and potentially new elections — in one word INSTABILITY,” Grindeanu stated.
Grindeanu also referred to the recent visit paid by President Klaus Iohannis to the US, saying it “has re-launched the Strategic Partnership”, and it is now only up to Romania to prove it is capable of keeping its promises.
“The meetings that I had in Israel, Austria, France or Croatia, the contacts with the EU officials, all this effort points to the same direction: showing that Romania is capable of keeping its promises, that investors can trust us. It is up to us to show that we are a united nation determined to walk the right path. I believe the dialogue between the Romanian Presidency, Senate, Chamber of Deputies and Government is important. As Romanians, we have these opportunities ahead of us. We just have to have enough political maturity and vision to take advantage of them. That is why Romania needs stability and predictability!”, PM Grindeanu concluded.
In retort, PSD chairman Liviu Dragnea stated that he is surprised by PM Grindeanu’s statements, pointing out that “a country’s stability doesn’t subsist in one single person”.
“It’s hard that someone tells me I don’t care about the stability of this country (….) I am a pretty responsible man, but I thank the premier for his concern for this country’s stability. As for other elections, I don’t think it’s the case. At the same time, besides these statements and predictions I think we should pay more attention to what happened with the ruling programme,” Dragnea told Romania TV.
The PSD chairman announced that several decisions would be adopted in the party’s National Executive Committee next week following the evaluation of the implementation level of the ruling programme by the current Executive.
“Depending the conclusions of the evaluation we’ll take some decisions in the National Executive Committee, but unimpassioned. Meaning there might be a decision that the Gov’t stays as it is, or changes can appear. I don’t have the political experience of the prime minister, but I have led the party in these elections and it seems that PSD has won the elections by an important score, 48.5% of the seats in Parliament, based on the ruling programme. It’s better that all remember this, that no one forgets. I didn’t say any prime minister’s name in the campaign. I said in the campaign that I come up in front of the Romanians with a programme that can make their life better and will make Romania a strong, developed country. I didn’t talk about persons. The stability of a country doesn’t subsist in one single person, or in three persons or ten, the stability of a country is seen in its development,” Dragnea underlined.