President Nicuşor Dan has called on parties to return to talks and negotiate a parliamentary majority that could support the appointment of a prime minister. The president’s appeal came after talks held on Friday, June 26, with the leaders of the former governing coalition.

The Social Democrat Party (PSD) has proposed its president, Sorin Grindeanu, for the job, while the National Liberal Party (PNL), the Save Romania Union Party (USR), and the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) put forth Liberal member of the European Parliament Siegfriend Mureșan.

The president said the country was back in “the political deadlock we had thought resolved.” He said that previous consultations with the parties had shown that a minority PSD government seemed the solution that would rally a parliamentary majority. According to the president, PNL had committed to voting for a minority PSD government, on certain conditions related to the governing program, but had since shifted its position.

“It is the responsibility of the parties to negotiate among themselves a majority for any government configuration they deem appropriate. I ask them to return to dialogue. Romania needs a government with full powers,” president Dan said in a social media post.

Last week, the president said it was important to have a government by June 30, when the Parliament is going into summer recess.

In response to the president’s statements, PNL president and acting prime minister Ilie Bolojan said PNL “never promised a blank cheque to Grindeanu,” but a political agreement that could form the basis of a decision regarding the establishment of a future government. Bolojan said no such agreement had been reached.

PSD, PNL, USR, and UDMR had formed a governing coalition making up a parliamentary majority until early May, when PSD sided with the hard-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) to topple the government led by PNL leader Ilie Bolojan after a May 5 no-confidence vote in Parliament.

The president has made two PM nominations since. On June 4, he nominated his advisor Eugen Tomac, a member of the European Parliament and the president of the People's Movement Party (Partidul Mișcarea Populară), which did not make the threshold to be represented in Romania's Parliament. On June 14, he nominated Adrian Veștea, the president of Brașov County Council and the vice-president of PNL, after Tomac gave up his mandate to form a government.

The cabinet put forth by Adrian Veștea failed to obtain the investiture vote in Parliament on June 22. He lacked the support of his own party, which voted to exclude him, alongside other party leaders, at a congress prompted by Vestea’s surprise appointment as PM without PNL’s knowledge or approval.

simona@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: presidency.ro)