Citu reaffirms PNL's decision to hold rotating premiership's first slot, dismisses Ciolacu's arguments

Chairman of the National Liberal Party (PNL) Florin Citu said on Wednesday that the party leadership's decision was for the Liberals to have the first slot of the rotating premiership, yet without setting any nominee and termed as bizarre the argument of Social Democrat leader Marcel Ciolacu, that he doesn't want Citu as a Premier because he was ousted by no-confidence motion, agerpres reports.

"The Executive Bureau meeting last night decided that the PNL agrees with a rotating premiership, and that the PNL should have the first slot. Nothing else was decided," Citu said at the party's headquarters.

Regarding the PSD Chairman's statement that Florin Citu is unacceptable as Prime Minister because he was dismissed by no-confidence motion, the Liberal leader said: "I heard this argument too. It seems bizarre to me, first of all because a no-confidence motion against a single person is unconstitutional and this means that the PSD wants none of the current government members to be in the future government. I don't really understand it, but I heard this argument. It seems to me that we are going in the wrong direction when we get to talk about a person, because after this statement I don't want to get my party colleagues started to say X, Y, Z from PSD cannot be in the government. After all, we are the party that has made this mandate more flexible. At the beginning we had another proposal for Prime Minister, we understood that. We want to move further. In the end we will see what the final decision is."

Citu also pointed out that in this logic, there is an entire list of PSD names that should not be in the government.

Asked if he would be willing to go to consultations with President Iohannis with another Liberal nominee for Prime Minister of a future government with PSD and UDMR, Citu replied: "Our decision is very clear - a PNL Premier in the first phase. We'll see within the party who that person will be. I saw that some of my Liberal colleagues are OK with the Prime Minister being appointed by other parties. It's weird, but that's it."

Florin Citu said that there will be a discussion with President Klaus Iohannis after talks on the governing program wrap up.

"It's the President's prerogative to appoint the Prime Minister," Citu stressed, voicing his confidence that PNL, PSD and UDMR will go to consultations at the Cotroceni Palace with a joint proposal for Prime Minister. "I am sure of that, otherwise we cannot go further. The moment we have a solution, we will go with a joint nomination," Citu said.