Romania’s Senate head resigns after losing his party’s support

Florin Cîţu, the speaker of Romania’s Senate, resigned on Wednesday, June 29, after losing the political support of his party - the National Liberal Party (PNL). Alina Gorghiu will take over as acting Senate speaker.

Prime minister Nicolae Ciuca, who is also the leader of the Liberal Party, made the official announcement on Wednesday morning after a meeting of the PNL parliamentary group in the Senate. During the meeting, Cîţu was reportedly informed that the PNL group would withdraw its political support, so he decided to resign.

PM Ciuca said that “taking into account the governmental and parliamentary activity, the responsibility of the PNL and the need for coherence of the measures to be taken, at the Government level, and in full accordance with the decisions taken at the coalition level, discussions and debates took place, and following these discussions, the president of the Senate, senator Florin Cîţu, announced his resignation.”

Cîţu later confirmed the information and said the party president and general secretary demanded his resignation. He also said he was told that his party withdrew its political support and didn’t want to put some of his fellow senators in the “embarrassing position” of voting against the party leadership.

Florin Cîţu also explained that the Liberals didn’t agree with some of the statements he made against some measures proposed by the Social Democratic Party (PSD) - PNL’s main partner in the ruling coalition.

“There are measures that I see as harmful for the Romanians, I believe that the PNL must stay close to entrepreneurs, to the private sector, and the measures that come against them I have always considered harmful,” he said, according to News.ro.

Asked what he would do next, Cîţu said he would continue to do politics.

The Liberals elected former prime minister Florin Cîţu as president of the PNL in September 2021, but things didn’t quite go as planned, with many scandals and disagreements within the ruling coalition affecting Cîţu’s position. The alliance eventually broke, and the government of prime minister Florin Cîțu fell in October 2021. Nicolae Ciuca took over the PM position and then the PNL president seat as well, replacing Cîţu.

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