Minister of Finance Eugen Teodorovici and Minister of Justice Tudorel Toader arrived at Cotroceni Palace on Thursday where they were supposed to talk to President Klaus Iohannis, instead of PM Viorica Dancila, on the issue of the budget rectification, after the draft had been approved by the Government yesterday, in the absence of the CSAT’s opinion. Only that, President Iohannis hasn’t come to the meeting personally, but, in his turn, he delegated his aides to talk to the two ministers.
The head of state had invited PM Viorica Dancila for consultations, but the premier left to Spain for an official visit.
Teodorovici și Toader have been received by Mihaela Ciochină, presidential adviser for the legal department and Cosmin Marinescu, presidential adviser within the department for social and economic policies.
After the meeting of the ministers and the presidential aides, the Presidential Administration has released a new press release, with President Iohannis stating that PM Viorica Dancila has ignored his invitation to attend the consultations at Cotroceni Palace regarding the budget rectification, adding that this situation “proves a dangerous precedent”.
The head of state further argued that a dialogue to lead to a valid solution should have taken place between the Gov’t and the Presidency before the executive had adopted the budget rectification and not after that.
A new episode of the Presidency-Government dispute over the budget rectification issue has broken out on Wednesday. After President Iohannis has suspended the CSAT sitting on Tuesday asking the Executive to come up with a new draft for rectification, the head of state has summoned PM Viorica Dancila and competent ministers for consultations to Cotroceni on Thursday, except that PM Dancila had the visit to Spain scheduled on Thursday.
Moreover, the Government has adopted the budget rectification draft on Wednesday, through emergency ordinance, without the CSAT’s opinion. The Executive’s decision to approve the rectification under these circumstances, defying the CSAT’s go-ahead and and the denial of the prime minister to come to consultations prompted President Iohannis to declare an institutional blockage on this topic. Iohannis has firmly condemned the adoption of the budget rectification draft without CSAT’ s mandatory opinion, announcing he will use all his constitutional prerogatives to sanction this conduct, while asking the Ombudsman to notify the Constitutional Court.
“The extremely low ranking members of the Government and also the political parties who keep on supporting the most incompetent government in the past 30 years are responsible for the complicated situation to which our country is pushed to,” President Iohannis argued.
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FinMin Teodorovici reacted to the president’s statement on “the most incompetent government in the past 30 years” on Wednesday evening, saying: “The President is making a mistake and I don’t think he has anticipated such an action of the Gov’t (the adoption of the budget rectification draft without the CSAT opinion). He probably though he would check mate the Government, but he’d better leave this political game aside for it has nothing to do with Romania”.