Romanian government signs and falls
A fortnight after Social Democrat (PSD) Dan Nica was sacked from his post as Romanian interior minister, and nine other ministers subsequently resigned in protest, the Romanian government has officially collapsed.
The PSD joined forces with the free-market liberals (PNL) and ethnic Hungarian minority party (UDMR) to table a motion entitled “11 against Romania” aimed at toppling all the Liberal Democrat (PDL) ministers in prime minister Emil Boc’s cabinet, reports Cotidianul. The no-confidence motion submitted by the PSD, PNL and UDMR, who could count on 274 yeas against the PDL’s 173 nays, was put to the vote on 13 October. To undermine this “historic vote”, the Liberal Dems are said to have tried to bribe their adversaries to “commit treason” at €200,000 apiece. But in vain: the no-confidence motion was carried by 258 in favour (a little more than the 236 votes needed).
Five weeks away from the presidential election slated for 22 November, these power plays in Bucharest are frowned upon in Brussels, adds Cotidianul: on 12 October, European Commission president José Manuel Barroso harshly rebuked Bucharest for “having yet to nominate its candidate for commissioner”. The very next day, recounts the Romanian paper, in a final round of signatures on the most important decisions to be taken, “Boc signed a rush nomination of agronomist Dacian Ciolos for the agriculture portfolio.”
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