Social Democrat leader Liviu Dragnea said that he has no intention to replace Premier Sorin Grindeanu in office, but pointed out that the governing program committed to by the Social Democratic Party (PSD, major at rule) and its allies is not an easy one and that as such, an assessment of the ministers’ activity is underway in this period, which will be followed by a series of proposals to be referred for approval to the PSD National Executive Committee (CExN).
“I have no intention whatsoever to replace PM Grindeanu as head of the government. This is my very clear answer,” Dragnea said on Tuesday at private broadcaster Antena 3, when asked whether he or other PSD senior members contemplate replacing Grindeanu in office.
Asked whether he has issues with Premier Grindeanu, Dragnea said: “I personally, don’t.”
He added that assessments of the ministers’ activity are being conducted periodically to check whether the commitments undertaken through the governing program are being observed, because the governing program is not “easy”.
“The governing program is conceived as a very rigorous and very strict roadmap. Every week, every month, a series of bills should have been sent to Parliament, several emergency ordinances and government decisions should have been adopted by now, because any delay somewhere along the path generates a delay elsewhere, the program needs to be thought in an integrated way. And then, this assessment we have started and that is being conducted on a daily basis will lead us to a conclusion. (…) We’ll complete it in a week or two. It will help us all see if the governing program is duly implemented. We perform regular assessments and this is no novelty. We’ll draw a conclusion at the end of the assessment,” Dragnea said.
The PSD Chairman said he has never talked about a government reshuffle.
“I never said anything about sacking anyone. I just said in a show (…) that I was dissatisfied with the Finance Minister’s manner of communicating. (…) I have never talked about reshuffle up until now. I don’t even know whether the issue of a reshuffle will be raised after this assessment. Maybe it will identify a problem of internal functioning at the ministries, maybe they didn’t succeed in making all the necessary changes in the ministries. Right now, just as I was about to get on air, I heard that Secretaries of State are still in office in several ministries from the time of the technocratic government, and these people are of course advancing with the pulled brake. If you win the election, you appoint your people in office. Maybe there’s a problem of inter-ministerial relating, maybe there’s an issue with the endorsement of the documents and this causes some serious delay, maybe there’s an issue of government coordination. All these things pile up from one day to another. In the end we’ll have a serious discussion with every minister separately and with the Prime Minister too, and we will present a set of proposals to the Executive Committee. Both PSD and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) are carrying out assessments in this period,” Dragnea said.
The Social Democrat leader emphasized that reshuffle talks do the ruling coalition no good.
“This debate in the past few days doesn’t do us any good, this much is clear. For this reason I ask my colleagues, this time very firmly, to stop any public discussion on this issue,” Dragnea said.
