- “We cannot be prisoners of a government that steals bread from Romanians! This is the conclusion of the first regional meeting of PSD branches…where all my colleagues agreed that we cannot remain in the government forever for the sake of a false stability that doesn’t bring prosperity. We refuse to be complicit in a government that makes unilateral decisions and ignores Romanians!” – PSD leader Sorin Grindeanu posted on Facebook on March 27.
In the meantime, following the cycle and circus of internal consultations, the PSD leader has himself tried to destabilize the government and today we are only hours away from the risk of triggering a major political crisis in Romania, with unpredictable developments, which is toxic echoes for the economy in a volatile domestic and international context.
Although Grindeanu made so-called serious accusation he failed to clarify a simple thing: how does the PSD deal with “a government that makes unilateral decisions”?
- How do you mean the PSD is confronted by this as the PSD is at the heart of the government, not outside it?
- Isn’t the PSD the largest party in the government, not a peripheral one?
- And whenever Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan accuses PSD of hypocrisy, on the grounds that they say one thing in coalition meetings and another thing in space, neither Sorin Grindeanu nor other PSD members have managed to dismantle Bolojan’s accusations? In fact, they didn’t even try.
And what do you mean that Bolojan takes “bread from the Romanians”, when Romanians have not eaten bread since the time of his predecessor, PSD Prime Minister, Marcel Ciolacu?
The problem with PSD has always been the same, regardless of when and who is temporarily running the party: a lack of responsibility, fear of assuming decisions, a double discourse and the rush to capitalize on being in government and passing on the liabilities to the smaller partners.
This time, however, the behavior of the Social Democrats is all the more blatant as the ruling coalition, in which the PSD plays a central role, has an existential priority for the country: to urgently cover the holes left behind by former PSD leader and Prime Minister, Ciolacu.
It’s as if Romania did not exist before the Bolojan era and in none of the positions taken by Grindeanu and party colleagues will you find even a minimum reference to the origins of the infernal situation we find ourselves in today:
- Abusing the country’s finances
- Accentuating the inefficiency of the state apparatus
- Fueling systemic corruption
- Encouraging the capping of state companies
In fact, objectively speaking, here is the key to the paradoxical situation in which Sorin Grindeanu has placed himself: how to throw the prime minister who is resuscitating the patient, Romania, to the lions, and to reward the prime minister (Ciolacu) who caused the patient’s illness by supporting him for the position of the head of a county council?
What normal person can find such a modus operandi acceptable?
In what politically civilized and rational world does the leader of a ruling party initiate the demolition of the government for no apparent reason other than that the government has engaged in a (albeit imperfect) process of reform and reconstruction? And, at the same time, the respective leader does this with a criminal disregard for the direct and indirect echoes both internally and externally.
In fact, this should be the question that Romania’s president deliberates on.
President Nicușor Dan says that he wants to be a mediator – not counterproductive in itself.
But at the same time, mediation is, fundamentally, an act that must take into account the context.
In the case of Grindeanu-PSD versus Bolojan, this is what is missing: context. The political context ; the economic context and the institutional context.
In reality, there’s no such things as neutrality. And relative neutrality (even if it is presidential), of Nicușor Dan in relation to Grindeanu-PSD, risks worsening the situation rather than saving it.
The fact that the PSD leader has already praised the neutrality mentioned by President Dan should be perceived as an alarm signal, not a constructive incentive.
In any coalition in functional democracies, there are constant dissatisfactions, frustrations, electoral concerns – which, in principle, are understandable.
But what Grindeanu is doing, by forcing the removal of a prime minister whose only fault is taking seriously the thankless mission of washing the dirty floor left by his predecessor (PSD) is meaningless both for the country, for its creditors and foreign partners, but even for the PSD.
Grindeanu’s gesture, the context he created and the potential for disruption, needs an efficient antidote. That would mean the PNL, USR and the head of state engage in a frontal battle with the PSD rather than hide behind the cherry of false stability and false neutrality.
