Florin Citu: Competition for the PNL leadership is already settled

Prime Minister Florin Citu, who announced his candidacy for the position of chairman of the National Liberal Party (PNL), said on Monday that the internal struggle for party leadership "is already settled" in his favor, agerpres reports.

He told private broadcaster Digi 24 that there were organizations that expressed their support for the party's current leader, Ludovic Orban, when there was no opponent.

"We will see the situation when we submit the motions, but yesterday there were many branches by my side that said before that they supported Mr. Ludovic Orban, precisely because there was no counter-candidate. Now there is a counter-candidate and we will see what the number of branches is at that moment. I'm saying that, from my point of view, this competition is already settled. I don't think I need to prove it anymore. I have proven my worth as Minister of Public Finance. This government is a successful one. It's not just me who says that. All the figures say it, the estimates of the IMF, the European Commission and so on. At this moment ... what I had to prove I proved," Citu maintained.

In his opinion, "PNL is the only solution to reduce poverty", compared to other European countries, and under his leadership PNL could "burn several stages" in Romania's economic development.

Citu also reiterated that his political goal is to remain in power for eight years.

"There have been difficult times and that's why I am telling you that I will never make compromises and you already know me very well. In four years, as a senator, Minister of Finance, I was the most attacked man by the PSD, with the greatest number of motions against me. I have never given in an inch to the PSD. This is the direction in which we are going, Liberalism, I have lived my life based on Liberal principles, I have applied Liberal principles and I will do so in the future. The most important thing is for the PNL to be able to implement the reforms we are talking about and in order to be able to do that you have to be in government for at least eight years, that's what this is all about. We need a PNL to be in power for at least eight years. I can do this now, (...) prepare the ground for the next eight years, but we need a strong party, a party that upholds the Liberal principles, private property is sacred, and we must all support that. We must all uphold that the entrepreneur is a hero and this is in fact Liberalism and we shouldn't make compromises in the future. Every position on which we appoint people should be people of value, people to make us proud to be Liberal," Citu underlined.

He added that "the PNL is the longest-lived party in Romania, and Liberalism was what saved Romania from the crisis last year."

"Romania came out of the pandemic with its forehead up precisely because it applied Liberal principles, but I think we need to push things a little bit, to accelerate, to have this reform or Liberalism, as I see it, it must be applied to make sure we have this period of eight years of government.The PNL is the party that is leading this governing coalition today. I think it can do more. I think the PNL has resources and has human resources in the first place, people want reform, people who don't want to compromise anymore, people who, as I have always said, are proud to be members of the PNL at all times, so that there is no time when they are not proud to be members of the PNL," added the prime minister.