The motion of censure tabled, read in Parliament. PM Grindeanu: There is the risk of snap elections

Entitled „Romania cannot be seized! We defend democracy and the Romanians’ vote!”, the motion of censure against the Grindeanu Government has been concluded and filed in Parliament on Sunday afternoon. It has got 223 signatures.

A four-page document, the non-confidence motion reads that „no group and no person cannot exert sovereignity in his own name” and that „a Government is dismissed when the Parliament withdraws support for it”.

The initiators also say that „this is not a motion of censure against a PSD-ALDE Government, but it’s an act of political responsibility that Romania’s Parliament needed to do.”

“By proving contempt for the democratic rules of the functioning of the state bodies, political immaturity and irresponsibility, the Prime Minister and one of his ministers instead of observing the investiture vote and the confidence granted by the Parliament, have understood that the ruling could be exercised in their own name (…) Two of the 27 members of the gov’t, led by a deputy, senior civil servant are distributing ministerial positions and launching ridiculous attacks in all directions, offering an unwilled and hallucinating caricature of the ruling act. The Ponta — Grindeanu — Jianu < > only demonstrate that there are politicians who have lost their common-sense’s compass, their honour and dignity for good, thus confirming the righteousness of the decisions made by the PSD and ALDE leaderships, for their political support to be withdrawn,” the motion furthers says.

The motion of censure against Grindeanu Cabinet has also been read on Sunday. PM Grindeanu is not attending the sitting. The vote is to be cast on Wednesday.

In order to be sure they have the ball at their feet, the Social Democrats threatened that the PSD lawmakers who miss the vote on Wednesday will be automatically expelled from the party. 233 votes are needed for the motion to pass, and PSD-ALDE count on 247 MPs.

Moreover, PSD claims the party’s gates are open for MPs from other parliamentary parties. PSD executive president Nicolae Badalau revealed that the Social Democrats are in talks with more MPs from other parties and they have confirmations that they will vote the motion of censure and are even willing to join PSD. No later than Sunday, PMP deputy Octavian Goga has resigned from PMP and announced he would activate in the PSD group.

However, in its turn, premier Grindeanu’s camp says that it had convinced at least 15 SocDem members to cut the vote day.

Recently appointed head of the Secretariat General of the Government former PM Victor Ponta announced that premier Grindeanu is open to negotiations to form a new Cabinet if the motion fails. In his view, if the motion is tabled, “an atomic war between PSD and PSD will kick off”.

PM Grindeanu: It’s only the desire of a man to have absolute power

In retort to the motion’s being filed today, PM Grindeanu said that it’s inadmisible the situation that Liviu Dragnea wants to topple down the Government. “The non-confidence vote is not even motivated. It’s just the desire of a man to have absolute power“, Grindeanu stated.

In his view, we are witnessing today a personal war fought by one man and a small group around him against the interests of his own party and Government.

“It’s all that could be worst for Romania when the economy posts record growth and we enjoy an extraordinary openness in the Western chancelleries. We are here due to Dragnea’s excessive will to have all power. There hasn’t been any party meeting in the past 5 months when the Government’s activity had been analysed.

We are enough colleagues in PSD who dont’ agree the way Dragnea is running the party and the fact that we are voting a motion against our own Government. It will definitely fail. If the motion passes, we’ll stand at the courtesy of Klaus Iohannis. All my colleagues should be aware that every ball put in the ballot box in favor of the motion of censure means less power for PSD and more power for Klaus Iohannis.

If the motion passes we’ll come up to the President and my conviction is that PSD will lose the ruling. There is the less wanted risk of growing to snap elections,” PM Grindeanu said.