Political Bickering Follows Government’s Decision To Step Down

Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, president of the European Socialist Party, criticized the decision made by the Romanian government to resign next week in order to prompt early elections.
"The Executive of a candidate country should not give up the fight after one blow," said Rasmussen sreferring to the Constitutional Court ruling which rejected the package of laws reforming the judiciary, trans. notet. He went on to comment that PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu "engaged in political games while his focus should have been to accomplish working reforms."
"It will be awful if Romania would fail to make the 2007 deadline for EU accession because of the political maneuvering of the government," added Rasmussen.

The EU Commission reminded that time was of the essence for Romania to comply with all requirements prior to its accession to the EU structures. It also reminded that both the Executive and the Parliament should work for a successful reform of the judiciary, which will ensure its independence and efficiency, according to provisions enshrined in the Accession Treaty.

Moritz Kraemer , of Standard & Poor’s, said that if early elections were to take place in September or October, implementing the reforms of the judiciary will be postponed several months and the likelihood to have the EU safeguard clause activated will increase sthe clause allowed EU to postpone Romania’s accession with one year if it failed to comply with targets agreed upon, trans. notet. So, Moritz said Romania stands now a 50-50 chance to integrate in the EU.

However, it is not clear how early elections will solve the issue prompting them: the judges in the Constitutional Court taking the decision which upset the ruling coalition may not be removed for at least several years each, hence no similar provisions could go passed them.

The leadership of the Democrat Union of Hungarians in Romania (junior coalition partner) agreed yesterday to take part in early elections, though it believed the Executive had enough parliamentary support as it is.
"It is true our majority was fragile, still it was a working majority and we could have found solutions in the current parliamentary make to the issues arising," said Marko Bela, head of the DUHR. "However, we decided to go along our coalition partners and agree with early elections," added Marko.
He explained that his colleagues’ lack of enthusiasm to the idea of early elections stemmed from the fear of endangering the European Union accession.
"Both the ruling of the Constitutional Court and the decision to have early elections brought up the risk of delaying our accession to the EU," said Marko.
He expressed no fear of losing the current ministerial positions his party currently holds in government once a new Executive will emerge, "since DUHR has a stable constituency," he explained.

Senate Speaker Nicolae Vacaroiu (Social Democrat Party, opposition) said yesterday that he deems Theodor Stolojan sformer National Liberal Party leader and candidate to the presidential elections of 2004, trans. notet to be the most likely future PM for the ruling coalition, since he also held that office before. However, Vacaroiu said he does not believe Stolojan will accept to lead a weak government. Vacaroiu reminded that the Parliament will convene in extraordinary session if the Executive will adopt the property laws by emergency ordinance, or if the current PM sTariceanu also heads the NLP, trans. notet will make good on his promise to resign. "A simple calculus shows that by the end of August we will call the parliamentarians in six or seven extraordinary sessions," said Vacaroiu.

House Speaker Adrian Nastase spresident of SDP, trans. notet said one of the extraordinary sessions is underway, as both houses agreed to convene Wednesday to debate the provisions in the judicial reform laws which were rejected by the Constitutional Court.

"The members of the ruling coalition will decide early next week the schedule for early elections and PM Tariceanu will present his cabinet’s resignation on Thursday, while continuing to act as a care-take government until elections," said Gheorghe Flutur, NLP vice-president.

For his part, Radu Berceanu, vice-president of the Democrat Party sruling, trans. notet said that the future Executive supported by the current ruling coalition will not include members of the Conservative Party, because the latter changed their position from left to right and then back again, as it suited their economic interests. Bogdan Ciuca, spokesperson of the CP said comments will be released only to official statements of the coalition partners, and not to those made by individual politicians.
He said the CP leader, Dan Voiculescu, will meat PM Tariceanu to address the early elections topic; its conclusions will be presented to the larger body of the CP leadership on Tuesday.

Mircea Geoana, executive president of the SDP, said calling early elections is part of a poker game President Traian Basescu plays; but that will have perverse results, warned Geoana. He said SDP was ready to enter negations to form a new government with the support of the current parliament, and when all attempts to that end will fail, it will engage forcefully in the electoral race.
"They want to fight? Fight they will have," added Geoana.
He also accused Basescu "and his accomplices in government" for pushing Romania into an unprecedented political crisis which will result in postponing the country’s integration to the EU beyond the 2007 threshold.
Geoana warned that SDP will not play to the tune of the ruling coalition and vote for a government that the ruling alliance will vote against, in order to comply with constitutional requirements and thus bring about early elections.
Geoana also had harsh words for Tariceanu, whom he accused of "throwing the towel in the ring" and abandoning the battle ssince Tariceanu position was until recently opposed to that of Basescu, as he did not agree with calling early elections as the President wanted, trans. notet.
Geoana refused to detail which will be the SDP political allies during and after the early elections and said that Ion Iliescu sformer President of Romania and leader of the SDPt "will stand by the party he founded."

Adrian Casunean, leader of the SDP in Covasna county sone of the two counties in central Romania where Hungarian ethnics make the majority of the population, and where Romanian-Hungarian tensions are played on by politicians, trans. notet, said the SDP should rule along the nationalist Greater Romania Party after the early elections will take place.
"We lost votes in central Romania, to the current ruling coalition sin November 2004, trans. notet, because we stated then that we will not rule along the GRP," explained Casunean.
He assessed that the GRP has at least one million stable followers sin a 16 million-strong electorate, trans. notet.