Ciolos: Assessment of Gov't, Prime Minister, to be conducted after PNL and USR PLUS internal elections

Co-chair of Save Romania Union - Unity, Freedom and Solidarity (USR PLUS) Dacian Ciolos said on Tuesday that an assessment for the entire government, including the prime minister, starting from the objectives assumed by the government programme will have to be conducted within the coalition, after the internal elections within the National Liberal Party (PNL) and the party he represents. This was the party leader's reply when asked whether Minister of Justice Stelian Ion is "vulnerable", at this moment, in the face of a reshuffle. "We have agreed together that any reshuffle must be backed by an assessment of the activity, that should be discussed within the coalition. This has not been the case for any minister so far and we will certainly not discuss any reshuffle before such an evaluation, which, as a matter of fact, once the internal elections are over, for both parties, will have to be carried out for the entire Government, including the prime minister. We have a government program and we have to start from there," Ciolos said at the end of the USR PLUS National Bureau. As regards Stelian Ion, the co-chair of USR PLUS specified that the foremr has "some very difficult files", which "belong not only to the Ministry of Justice, but also to the coalition". "And as for the dismantlement of the Special Section, Minister Stelian Ion is the one who came up with several solutions that he proposed, precisely to seek a political solution within the coalition. And it is in no case because of either Stelian Ion or USR PLUS that we do not have certain governance objectives met.So this will certainly not be usable as an element of Minister Stelian Ion's assessment, because this is about a political responsibility of all the coalition parties. Many things are being discussed in the public space, we have a responsibility to govern, not to play with terms, portfolios, divisions, crossings and so on. We will conduct an assessment of the way the Government works as a whole and we will discuss within the coalition all the necessary measures to ensure that what we have promised, through the government program, we will fulfill," Ciolos also declared. AGERPRES (RO - author: Daniel Florea, editor: Florin Marin; EN - author: Simona Iacob, editor: Cristina Zaharia)