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The National Liberal Party will propose Nicolae Ciucă for the position of prime minister at the consultations in Cotroceni with the president Klaus Iohannis, on Thursday. The decision of the PNL after the nomination of Nicolae Ciucă will be to form a minority government, consisting of PNL and UDMR, practically excluding those from USR from the Cabinet.
Nicolae Ciuca is a general and is the acting minister of Defense.
The variant with Nicolae Ciucă as prime minister was proposed after talks between President Klaus Iohannis and the PNL leadership.
In the new government, the Liberals want all ministries that have approval prerogatives, but also important ministries such as the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Development.
Nicolae Ciuca was also interim prime minister in the past, after the resignation of Ludovic Orban following the parliamentary elections in December 2020. Then, Ciuca’s name appeared as a possible candidate for prime minister of the PNL, but, in the end, the solution agreed in the coalition was for Florin Cîțu to be named as PM.
After the Parliament had rejected Ciolos Cabinet on Wednesday, the Romanian head of state convened consultations with all political parties today, with the Liberals being the first to talk to Iohannis.
Nicolae Ciucă joined the PNL in October and ran in the parliamentary elections of December 6, 2020 for a seat in the Senate.
Former Chief of Staff, General Nicolae Ciuca asked to be discharged last year, when he was proposed to hold the position of Minister of Defense, as NATO standards require that this position is held by a civilian. During the pandemic, the Ministry of Defense was involved in managing the health crisis, including providing military managers for hospitals in difficulty.
A few names of the rumoured draft Ciuca Cabinet
- Iulian Dumitrescu – Transports
- Cătălin Predoiu – Justice
- Dan Vîlceanu – Finance
- Nelu Tătaru – Health
- Bogdan Aurescu- Foreign Affairs
- Robert Sighiartău – Labour
- Daniel Petrescu chief of staff – Defence
UDMR: In a democracy, gov’ts are not led by military
UDMR leader Kelemen Hunor, whose party is the PNL’s ruling partner, said that they are open to dialogue on Nicolae Ciuca’s nomination, yet underlined that this is a political issue, arguing that in the democratic countries, governments are not led my military, regardless they are discharged. “We don’t have a problem with his person. Ciuca is an excellent military, (…) but in none democratic states in the past 50-60 years the PM was an army man,” said Kelemen Hunor.
USR is not endorsing a Cabinet by Ciuca
Sources from USR told Digi24.ro that the party will not endorse a minority PNL-UDMR government led by Nicolae Ciuca.
USR leaders will go to the consultations at Cotroceni with a mandate of restoring the coalition and without a name for the PM position.
Florin Citu eyes the Senate Speaker position
PNL chairman Florin Citu, former PM, would eye the second position in the state, the Senate Speaker seat, sources from PNL told Digi24.
The leadership of the Senate is currently held by USR, with Anca Dragu as senate speaker. Dragu can be dismissed with the votes of PNL, PSD and UDMR. However, Social Democrats also target the leadership of the upper chamber of the Parliament.
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