Save Romania Union (USR) and Force of the Right deputies tabled on Wednesday in the plenary sitting a simple motion against Minister of the Interior Lucian Bode, titled “Romania deserves better than thieves in public office”.
“In accordance with the provisions of Article 112 of the Constitution of Romania and Article 189 of the Rules of Procedure of the Chamber of Deputies, the USR group together with the Force of the Right deputies file the simple motion against Mr. Lucian Nicolae Bode – ‘Romania deserves better than thieves in public office’,” the USR Lower House floor leader Ionut Mosteanu announced in the plenary session of the Chamber.
The initiators of the motion request Bode’s resignation, so that Romania’s Schengen bid can be represented by a negotiator “who is looked upon with respect by the European partners”.
“Plagiarist Bode cannot keep up with either common sense or the needs of Romanians. USR together with the Force of the Right filed a targeted motion against still minister and still doctor Bode, because we believe that Romania deserves to have a chief of the Police Force who is not a thief and we consider that Romania deserves as a negotiator for its Schengen case someone who is looked upon with respect by the European partners. Mr. Bode must own up to the all across the board failure of his mandate as the head of the Ministry of the Interior. Yet instead Mr. Bode dodges Parliament with the help of the poverty coalition. Instead, Mr. Bode allows his deputy in the line of the party to threaten his colleagues with Securitate-patterned files put together by intelligence agency ‘Two and a quarter’, an institution on his ministerial turf. Instead, Mr. Bode uses party money to threaten in the online space an honest journalist. For all these reasons, Mr. Bode should no longer be a minister or a doctor,” said USR deputy Cristian Seidler.
Non-affiliated MP Antonel Tanase, a member of the Force of the Right, said that Lucian Bode must step down because Romania will not be able to join the Schengen Area as long as he is the head of Internal Affairs.
“He is not the only one to blame. In the wake of the BMW police fleet and plagiarism scandals, Bode got deeply involved in the case of Romania’s Schengen entry, seeking to wash his image somehow. He failed and dragged Romania down. Maybe it suits the Social Democrats that Lucian Bode continues to head the Ministry of the Interior, because the National Liberal Party is becoming increasingly less significant in the governing equation. The PSD is the main beneficiary of this effort to keep Lucian Bode at the helm of the Ministry of the Interior,” Tanase argued, according to Agerpres.
