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Romania’s Finance Minister Florin Cîțu, a member of the National Liberal Party (PNL), has support to become prime minister following this month’s election.
Cîțu was nominated by a three party, center-right coalition of the PNL, the USR-PLUS led by Dacian Cioloș and the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR). The proposal is now subject to consideration by Romanian President Klaus Iohannis.
“I would like to thank the center-right coalition for the trust they are placing in me,” Cîțu told reporters on Friday evening. “I will be directly involved over the coming days in finishing the government’s program.”
That’s despite the fact that the opposition Social Democratic Party (PSD) was the biggest winner in Romania’s December 6 election, securing 110 seats in parliament. The PNL won 93 seats, USR-PLUS 55 and UDMR 21. The far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians also entered parliament with 33 deputies.
Cîțu would take over as prime minister from Ludovic Orban, also from the PNL, who announced the day after the election that he would step down.
Following coalition negotiations on Friday and Saturday, the parties agreed the liberals would lead the coalition with nine cabinet seats, while the USR-PLUS would gain six and the UDMR three, two officials involved in the negotiations said, confirming Romanian media reports.
A full cabinet could be announced in the coming days, Cîțu told reporters.
Cîțu is a former investment banker at Dutch lender ING’s Romanian division. He did stints as an economist for the New Zealand central bank and the European Investment Bank before entering politics as a senator in 2016. He studied in the U.S. at Grinnell College and as a postgraduate at Iowa State University.
Cîțu has proved to international organizations such as the European Commission that he is “a credible partner,” said Siegfried Mureșan, a prominent MEP from Cîțu’s own PNL party. The proposed new prime minister “is attached to European values and will govern responsibly,” Mureșan said.
Amid Romania’s struggle with the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic, one of Cîțu’s victories was convincing global credit rating agencies to maintain the country’s investible label, which is crucial for borrowing costs.
But while he is seen as an effective technocrat, he lacks credentials as a political operator.
Some analysts say outgoing prime minister Orban may retain outsized control despite having resigned after his party lost the election. Orban remains the leader of the Liberals and, in the current version of the coalition deal, will also head up the chamber of deputies — two positions that combined would make him highly influential.
In the wake of Orban’s resignation, President Iohannis named defense minister and ex-general Nicolae-Ionel Ciucă as interim prime minister, a move that reportedly aroused protests from Liberals since Ciucă, a lifelong soldier, only joined the party in October.
Cîțu was briefly appointed as prime minister by Iohannis in February this year after the government lost a confidence motion, but declined to take up the position out of loyalty to Orban, who was then reinstated.
“I am a party man and I endeavor to stand by the party and its president in difficult moments,” Cîțu said at the time. “I strongly believe that to be successful in the coming elections the president of the party should also be prime minister.”
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