The new center-left Romanian Government received this Monday the approval of Parliament with a message of stability in the face of the economic and institutional crisis that the country is experiencing, and with the promise that no austerity measures will be resorted to.
“The economic crisis in developed countries will also be felt in Romania in 2025. We will have a difficult economic year“, the social democratic leader explained before the Plenary Session of Parliament Marcel Ciolacuwho repeats as prime minister.
The head of the Government, who had the support of 240 of the 450 deputies and senators present, meeting in a joint session, said that among his priorities is giving a positive boost to the business environment through stability.
Furthermore, he promised not to resort to austerity measures, in one of the poorest countries in the European Union and in which Inflation has seriously affected purchasing power of a good part of the population.
The Social Democratic Party of Ciolacu has reissued the coalition he maintained for the last four years with the conservative PNL, a member of the European People’s Party, which has now been joined by UDMR, the formation that represents the interests of the Hungarian minority.
The new Executive has presented itself as priority to reduce the tax burden on salariesespecially of the lowest and employees with children, as well as stopping the explosive rise in prices.
Furthermore, he has promised easier access to housing for young families, that contribute to alleviating the country’s demographic problem, caused by the shortage of births and emigration.
However, the PNL has suggested that the reduction of public spending should also mark the economic agenda.
He new Government will have sixteen ministriesof which eight will be for the PSD, six for the PNL and two for the UDMR.
These parties, plus the national minority legislators who support them, They make up 176 of the 331 deputies and 74 of the 134 senators.
New presidential elections
One of the first tasks of the new Executive will be to convene new presidential electionsafter that electoral process was annulled on the 6th by the Constitutional Court due to suspicions of Russian interference and irregular financing of the ultranationalist Călin Georgescuwinner of the first round.
In this regard, Ciolacu affirmed that the next presidential elections will be fair for all competitors and that the result will be decided by “the will of the Romanians, not the algorithms,” referring to Georgescu’s aggressive campaign on social networks.
The parties of the Government agreement will present CRin Antonescu, former leader of the PNL, as joint candidate for the presidential electionss.
The PSD and the PNL suffered a harsh electoral setback in the legislative elections on December 1, with losses of 5 and 10 points respectively compared to the last elections.
High inflation, entrenched corruption, fear of war in neighboring Ukraine and the feeling that 18 years after joining the European Union the promises of modernization and growth have not been fulfilled have generated a current of protest votes that benefits populist and extremist parties.
These formations, which accounted for more than a third of the votes, accused Ciolacu this Monday at the investiture session of having committed irregularities in the government formation process.
The sixteen ministers of the Government have been invested after being approved today in the respective parliamentary committees, in a very rapid process that has been described as a “joke” by the ultranationalist AUR party, which was second in the legislative elections.
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