Liberals Close to Quitting Romania Coalition

Romania's centre-left coalition looked close to splitting up after Klaus Johanis, a leader of National Liberal Party, PNL, on Monday said he was “not very optimistic that the coalition will survive tomorrow.

“We failed to find a solution to the proposed cabinet changes. As a result, our party will decide on Tuesday if our ministers will leave the government or not,” he added.

The dispute with the dominant Social Democratic Party, PSD, is over the Liberals' nomination of four ministers, made on 7 February, when they decided to replace the interior, finance, health and economy ministries.

Prime Minister Victor Ponta, also the PSD leader, declined to accept the Liberals' nomination of Johannis, the popular mayor of Sibiu, as Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.

The Liberals believe Ponta now wants them out of the government ahead of the presidential and European elections due later this year.

The Social Democrats and Liberals will run separately in the EU elections, but both have agreed to support a Liberal for the post of President.

For their part, the Social Democrats insist they do not oppose the nominations of the proposed ministers, but only want to change the current structure of the government.

Their proposed change would favour some of the other minor parties in the coalition, to the disadvantage of the Liberals, analysts say.

The centre-left ruling Social Democratic Union, USL, holds around 70 per cent of the seats in parliament. It consists of the Social Democrats, Liberals and two other smaller parties.

Prime Minister Victor Ponta said on Monday that if the Liberals withdrawal from the coalition, a new government should be appointed by March 8.

Media reports say that in...