Romania has a government again: parliament confirms Niculescu cabinet
By 280 votes to 58, parliament in Bucharest approved the minority government of independent diplomat Luca Niculescu, ending months of political deadlock.
Archive image · Photo: anisoboy / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped and resized)
Romania's parliament on Tuesday confirmed the government of independent diplomat Luca Niculescu. The cabinet won 280 votes from deputies and senators, with 58 against; 233 were needed. That evening the ministers were sworn in at Cotroceni Palace in the presence of President Nicușor Dan. "We are coming out of six months of crisis, we are getting down to work immediately," Niculescu said after the vote. "Romania cannot wait any longer." The 55-year-old is a former journalist and ambassador to France and most recently served as a state secretary in the foreign ministry. He was Dan's fourth nominee for prime minister.
The cabinet combines politicians from the Social Democrats (PSD), the largest party, with independent technocrats. The Liberals of outgoing interim prime minister Ilie Bolojan and the Hungarian minority party UDMR voted in favour but are not part of the government. Bolojan called his party's support a "vote of necessity". The far-right AUR, which leads polls with close to 40 percent, voted against and called it a "puppet government". According to the AP news agency, several parties agreed to back the cabinet for at least six months.
Bolojan's government fell in May in a no-confidence vote backed by the PSD and AUR in a dispute over austerity measures. Last year Romania had one of the highest budget deficits in the EU. President Dan warned: "The challenges will likely be greater than they have been so far." Bucharest political consultant Cristian Andrei told AP that the vote was "only a short break in the political battle in a fragmented parliament".