Former Prime Minister Victor Ponta spoke on Digi24 on Thursday evening about the changes of ministers in the current government and how he would approach such a situation.
Cosmin Prelipceanu, Digi24 journalist: Is Marcel Ciolacu entitled to want his transports?
Victor Ponta, former prime minister: “Yes. I’ll tell you how I did it. I’ve been in this situation, it’s easier for me to talk than for others. I met Crin Antonescu when we had to form the USL government. It was all PNL and PSD. I said “Hey Crin, you have two good people, I don’t know, one in the Economy, one in the Army, let’s put those two of yours. I have two good people. Look, I want to put Florin Georgescu in Finance and X in Health. OK. Let’s share».
I expected that Mr. Ciolacu and Mr. Ciucă, maybe also with Hunor Kelemen, would meet in a place without our knowledge and say: «We make a list of good ministers and we keep them no matter what, it doesn’t matter, that they are PSD, PNL. And we make a list of stupid ministers, in the sense of weak, and we change them no matter what, it doesn’t matter that they are PSD, PNL.
The Hungarians – we want to kick them out, I don’t know if we kick them out or not. I believe that the two from Development and Environment are good ministers, they speak foreign languages, they know how. The one from Sport, no, poor thing. “No, let’s take Development from the Hungarians, because we want it.” Well, you have a better one than Cseke, if you have him, throw him out.» Same with Transportation. The big problem with Transport in Romania and I also suffered from it and after that it was much worse for me, the fact that it kept changing, kept changing, kept changing. Grindeanu, how much does he have? A year or so…He signed some contracts with everyone, not just PSD. Today he was in Cluj and signed the contract for the subway. Let him know that he knows those with whom he signed the contracts and it is in the interest of Grindeanu, who is running next year, he is party leader, to put them into practice, otherwise if he signed the papers and would stay with them. …Romania is the country of signed papers that don’t turn into anything…I think it’s legitimate, I don’t think the alliance will break from something like that.
I admit that I expected the criterion to be after a year and a half: let’s see the good ones…I, for example, would change Mr. Bode, not for the scandals, but for the fact that he managed and manages very bad Schengen problem, but I don’t know even now, after 3 years, who blew up that man in Arad. I have a problem with this thing.
For me, revolting as a citizen of Romania, to have a Minister of Tourism, it doesn’t matter from which party or what his name is, who doesn’t speak English and doesn’t fly by plane, it seems to me the emblem of the way the party spoils the government. So the promotion of Romanian tourism is sublime but it is completely lacking.
You should keep some people who have at least done something or who have some problems to solve. I’ll give you another example: from my point of view, I’m going back to the money part, but following the court rulings that the judges obtained, this year Romania has to give judges, prosecutors about 16 billion RON. But it’s a structural problem, in the sense that you didn’t give them one time and fix it, you have to give them five years back and from now on they have to give them the high wages. I would hold Mr. Predoiu, who was a minister all these years, and say: “Mr. Minister, stay and solve this problem, I don’t know how, talk to the magistrates, solve it, do something in the elections, but solve it -oh, that if I bring in a new minister and put the magistrates in his arms who say Hello, Mr. Minister, give us the money.» What should the new minister do? Where will they get 3 billion euros from?”.
