Victor Ponta: We fight for the Pro Romania candidates

Pro Romania leader Victor Ponta called on his party colleagues "to rely only on themselves" in the electoral battles and to fight for the candidates of the party in the upcoming elections. "I am in Pro Romania and only in Pro Romania will I be, and I rely only on Pro Romania. If I relied on someone else it would mean making the same mistake every time. (...) Please continue rely only on yourselves in the ensuing electoral battle, only on yourselves. (...) We are Pro Romania, we fight for the Pro Romania candidates," said Victor Ponta on Sunday. Asked at the end of the annual National Convention whether Pro Romania accepts an alliance with the Social Democratic party (PSD) for the local elections, Ponta said: "I don't think anyone spoke specifically about an alliance today." "As you can see, I think I am the most vocal as to the healthcare area for what PNL [the National Liberal Party] is doing wrong. Likewise, we have in our manifesto today some ideas and projects related to taxation, related to the administration. Should the PSD want to support them, after solving their internal problems, it would be very good," added the Pro Romania leader. Victor Ponta launched, on Sunday, at the annual Convention, the Pro Romania Manifesto 2020-2024, which proposes a series of priority measures to help Romania's development.   The document proposes to change the fiscal system by switching to a differentiated, progressive taxation of salaries and large pensions, as well as the harmonization of the food quota with the one from the tourism services, respectively 5 percent VAT. Another measure aims at an administrative reform - reducing the number of counties from 41 to 15, reducing the number of territorial administrative units from 3,300 to no more than 1,500 and the number of parliamentarians to a maximum of 300 - 200 deputies and 100 senators. Pro Romania also supports a wage reform, namely the introduction of the European minimum wage in the form proposed by the European Parliament. AGERPRES (RO - author: Daniel Florea, editor: Catalina Matei; EN - author/editor: Simona Iacob)