PDL head Emil Boc: The Partnership for Romania will be signed on Sunday. Hungarian Democrats will not have ministers, but secretaries in the future Cabinet

Duminică, 14 decembrie 2008, 9:59 English | Politics

"We are close to putting up the Partnership for Romania, which could be signed on Sunday", said the president of the Democrat Liberal Party, Emil Boc, after the negotiations round with Social Democrats (PSD) on Saturday. "We hope that the new Government will be approved by the Parliament and will be installed before December 22", Boc added. According to Boc, Hungarian Democrats (UDMR) will not have ministerial seats, but only secretaries (vice-ministers). "This is a historical moment. Two political forces that were on irreconcilable positions until now understood that the national interest is above anything else", said PSD president Mircea Geoana.

Emil Boc's main statements:

- The Partnership for Romania includes 25 principles upon which we agreed. Among those are: maintaining the existing jobs, maintaining and gradually increasing the purchase power of Romanians, maintaining the flat tax, but with some incentives for the low income populace, Health system reform and Education reform";

- The political representation in the Government will belong to PSD and PDL. UDMR will not have top positions in the Government, but may have state secretaries;

- We understood the difficult position PSD is in, PSD understood out promise to UDMR. We hope to have an agreement with UDMR for representation via secretaries;

- We haven't discussed anything about sharing ministries. We don't even know how many ministries we'll have.


Mircea Geoana's main statements:

- The Partnership for Romania is the expression of what both parties have best to offer. It was put up by experts;

- The governing program is a guarantee for those with the lowest income that they will rise above the crisis;

- Our attitude has nothing to do with the nationalism. PSD and PNL already have a 70% support in the Parliament. There was no need for UDMR to join the cabinet;

- The most complex problems of the Hungarian minority were solved when UDMR was supporting a PSD cabinet without participating in the governance;

- PSD will have a vice prime minister and the sharing of the ministries will be 50/50.