Romania's presidential candidate Simion pledges to appoint far-right leader Georgescu as PM

Romania's frontrunner for the May 18 presidential elections, George Simion, announced his plans, which include bringing radical far-right politician Călin Georgescu as prime minister and forming a parliamentary majority around his Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) party, which has a nationalist ruling strategy.

AUR currently holds 18% of the seats in Parliament, and all three far-right parties have controlled some 30% of the seats since the December 1 parliamentary elections.

"It's a possibility," Simion said when asked about the early elections scenario, adding, "Honestly, I'd like to avoid it."

Regarding economic measuresaimed at addressing the fiscal slippage, Simion announced gradual public optimization measures, such as cutting the number of employees in the public sector from 1.3 million to 0.8 million over the next five years, but ruled out austerity measures, such as hiking the VAT. On the contrary, AUR has promised tax cuts.

AUR's ruling strategy provides for the nationalization of strategic companies, such as OMV Petrom, with fair compensation and also for significant public investments. It does not explain the financing resources for such strategies.

Georgescu's utopian economic doctrine is rather for electoral use with no immediate implementation, hence his nomination for the prime minister seat is particularly worrying. Not as worrying as Georgescu's political doctrine of fascist extraction, though.

In terms of immediate internal policy, George Simion confirmed for Digi24 that he plans to nominate Călin Georgescu for the prime minister seat two times and, if refused by lawmakers, would dissolve the Parliament and call for snap elections. This depends on Georgescu accepting the prime minister seat and on the outcome of the presidential elections, Simion pointed out.

Marius Lulea, vice president and founder of AUR, declared for Realitatea Plus on May 6 that his party has prepared a government with "8-10 ministries and a maximum of 50 state secretaries" and implied that it might be a minority government as well.

Lulea recalled similar situations in the past.

"We had a government led by [Călin Popescu] Tăriceanu; it was a minority government. We offer to ensure this governance and the reforms that are absolutely necessary and that they [Social Democrats and Liberals] cannot do," he said. Lulea recalled the "reforms in the Simion plan" and said that AUR will follow the Polish model in implementing changes in the economy, starting with tax cuts.