The list of the ministers proposed for the Cabinet of Prime Minister-designate Dacian Ciolos and the governing program were submitted to Parliament on Monday.
According to regulations, the Standing Bureaus are to meet in order to set the date of the joint meeting of Parliament, within 15 days of receiving the governing program and the list of ministers.
Each candidate for the position of minister will be heard in a joint meeting by the Chambers’ standing committees responsible for the office seeker’s sphere of competence.
Following the hearing, the committees shall present a joint, reasoned advisory opinion.
The program and the list of the government are debated by the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate in a joint sitting.
Prime Minister-designate Ciolos: We need an executive that is capable of taking responsibility every single minute and to be able to act immediately
Prime Minister designate Dacian Ciolos announced on Monday that he submitted in Parliament the list of ministers and the governing program, highlighting that there is a need for an executive capable of taking responsibility for difficult measures that will follow and that he is waiting for the parties to vote this Cabinet.
“In the event that this Government will pass, we need people who will quickly answer the political needs and take responsibility for the difficult measures that will follow. We are prepared to take responsibility for those difficult measures. Unfortunately, we are in a moment where we can no longer afford to lose another second. We need an executive that is capable of taking responsibility every single minute and to be able to act immediately,” Ciolos said.
He said that the proposed program may seem harsh, but it is necessary.
“Our program, our governing program which we proposed, may seem harsh, but it is necessary, because during exceptional situations you need exceptional measures. We will focus on the obvious current priorities, we need solutions and immediate measures for the sanitary crisis. It is already too late and we see that people die every day, hundreds die every day, and at the same time to prepare for the energy crisis which could strongly hurt people this winter,” Dacian Ciolos added, according to Agerpres.
This is a crisis cabinet, with determined people caught up in no calculations
This is “a crisis cabinet, with determined people” who are not caught up in any other calculations whatsoever, Prime Minister-designate Dacian Ciolos said on Monday after submitting his cabinet’s list and governing program to Parliament.
“This is no longer about mathematics, this is about politics and taking responsibility. The fact that we come before you and that we have submitted the government list and the governing program means that we are offering a chance and the lawmakers will now decide on it by their vote. This is a crisis cabinet, with determined people who are caught up in no sort of other calculations,” Ciolos explained.
“I hope the hearings and the vote can be organized as soon as possible, right this week. I hope the joint Standing Bureaus of the Parliament Chambers take this decision today, because we are ready take the plunge, to get to work as soon as possible, if this government gets the Parliament’s go-ahead,” Ciolos said.
“A majority is built around a political project. We want to find solutions. The Save Romania Union (USR) is a responsible party, looking for practical, pragmatic and feasible solutions, not just on paper, or to help one person or another. What we are doing today is a sufficient sign of the responsibility USR commits to. This is how we have approached things so far. Of course, we also have our share of upsets and emotions, but you saw we steered clear of that, we didn’t get this into play, we kept this out of the political decision and came up with pragmatic proposals without forcing the pride of one or another,” Ciolos said when asked if USR will no longer enter negotiations with the National Liberal Party if the line-up proposed by him does not get the Parliament’s vote.
We hope political forces in Parliament understand urgency and act in good faith
The Prime Minister-designate, Dacian Ciolos, expressed his hope, on Monday, after submitting the list of ministers and the governing programme, that through a decision of political forces to pass his Cabinet through Parliament “political peace” can be achieved, giving the possibility to Romanian society to pass the winter and exit the crisis without “social convulsions.”
“We hope the political forces in Parliament understand the urgency and act in good faith. We acted in good faith, with honesty and transparency from the beginning, without making political games, without trying to profit one way or another through speculations on this moment. I want to assure the colleagues in Parliament that we will continue to act in good faith. We don’t have the slightest intention of opening a political confrontation in Parliament just to win political points. Each of them will vote with their own conscience and I hope that each thinks twice when they vote and decide if they pass the government that we present. It is not the time for political games,” said Ciolos at the Parliament.
“I hope that through such a decision we can reach political peace, which would give the possibility to Romanian society to pass the winter, to exit this crisis and to avoid seeing social convulsions due to the incapacity to make decisions at the political level. This is our strategy, this was our objective from the beginning. We tried to negotiate a political majority before reaching this moment. We didn’t manage this, but we decided to go through the end with it, because I believe that this mandate that I received is a responsibility, and a responsibility is assumed to the end, and if this government has support or not will be decided only through the vote,” added Ciolos.
“When you’re going with a monochrome minority government you are not speaking of a majority anymore. A majority you build beforehand, but you can have a vote in Parliament for a minority government. (…) At this time as well, I am making demarches through what I’m telling you, but not with negotiations under the table, because these negotiations are done before, in order to build a stable majority. Otherwise, we seek to put the arguments on the table and that’s what we’re doing now and I am not doing it with any sort of irony. What I said – that the votes are counted in Parliament – is a reality,” said the Prime Minister-designate.
About the possibility of early elections, Ciolos said: “Let’s discuss this at the end of the week, after we have a result for what we proposed now. The answer is that we, the USR [Save Romania Union], are a responsible party and we will always discuss any solution that would lead to exiting the crisis.”
PSD’s Ciolacu: A Government with zero chances of passing Parliament
The Social Democratic Party (PSD) chair, Marcel Ciolacu, states that Dacian Ciolos’ “ambition” to propose a “draft Government with zero chances of passing Parliament” means “a week lost.”
“A week lost = 2,000 dead: that’s what Ciolos’ ambition to propose a draft Government with zero chances of passing Parliament! When you speak of responsibility, but propose for [Ioana] Mihaila for Healthcare out of all people, the one who admitted her major failure in preparing hospitals for wave four of the pandemic, this is cynical to no end. When hundreds of Romanians die daily, and you hang on to senseless political negotiations, that shows a terrible lack of empathy towards the drama of thousands of families. When mathematics show you that your sketch of a Cabinet will garner the most votes against in the history of the Parliament, to insist like a lunatic to prolong the political crisis in full healthcare disaster means, ultimately, lack of responsibility. Political alliances are done and undone, the economy can be fixed, but the lives lost nobody will be able to turn back,” wrote Ciolacu, on Monday, on Facebook.
