UDMR's Kelemen: Cooperation with PSD-ALDE or none at all - the only choices, as opposition offers no option

Chairman of the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR) Kelemen Hunor said on Saturday at the Council of Union Representatives (CRU) taking place in Targu Mures that his formation has come under fire for having nailed a deal with the PSD-ALDE ruling coalition, but underscored that these were the only political parties willing to sit down for dialogue, unlike opposition parties.

I said we cooperate in Parliament with the PSD-ALDE coalition because they were and are willing to cooperate and engage in dialogue. We don't come to terms on all the projects, we don't back all of their projects, and they don't support all of our projects either, but there is a dialogue going on and they are willing to look for solutions together. I would have liked us to also have a dialogue with the opposition, but except for the Save Romania Union (USR), with whom we managed to dialogue on certain subjects and who manifest a certain openness, there is no such possibility with the other opposition parties, the National Liberal Party (PNL) has become ultranationalist, anti-Hungarian, they don't seem interested in anything else, they challenge the establishment of a [Hungarian-language] school in the Constitutional Court, this is not against UDMR, this is against the Hungarian community, the school does not belong to UDMR. Well, it's their decision, but I think they are making an even bigger mistake with approaches like 'in time UDMR will swallow their anger'. As for the People's Movement Party (PMP), I cannot comment anymore about [party head] Basescu, said Kelemen Hunor.

He added that UDMR has no other choice but cooperate if they don't want to isolate themselves in Parliament, because they only have 7 percent and need 43 percent of the votes even for even the smallest-scale projects to pass.

"These are the options at hand, either with PSD-ALDE, or with no one, because there is no one to join forces with on the other side, said Kelemen Hunor.