Opposition's motion of censure: Ciolacu II government has already accumulated shameful record of abuses and failures

The signatories of the motion of censure "Prime Minister NORDIS must go, Romanians are tired of humiliation", tabled with the Chamber of Deputies by opposition Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), S.O.S. Romania, the Party of Young People (POT), maintain that the current government is "illegitimate" and, although it has been in office for only two months, has accumulated "a shameful record of abuses and failures"."Premier Marcel Ciolacu was imposed by the illegitimate President Klaus Iohannis, when the latter had already completed his constitutional mandate. Therefore, this Government and this prime minister are devoid of any trace of legitimacy, representing in fact the abusive prolongation of a regime categorically rejected by the citizens. As far as its executive capacity is concerned, in a functioning democracy there would not even have been the need for a motion of censure to remove it - this Government should never have existed. The popular will expressed in the December elections was clear: Romanians demanded change. What do we have today? A coalition led by Marcel Ciolacu and his allies, joined by the UDMR [the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania], always willing to sit at the winners' table. In this predictable behind-the-scenes game, UDMR has received key ministries, but also the responsibility that Marcel Ciolacu is running away from, trying to evade responsibility for the economic collapse caused by the latest fiscal measures and chaotic policies adopted in recent months. But this maneuver does nothing but confirm that the current government is functioning on the basis of political bartering, without any real concern for the welfare of Romanians, not even for their minimum security," reads the motion of censure.In the opinion of the motions' signatories, the prime minister has lost credibility, his image and that of some "prominent" members of the Cabinet being "compromised" by "association with the monstrous 'Nordis' scandal, a fraud of huge proportions, worth tens of millions of euros, which has left behind almost 1,000 Romanians deceived by the unacceptable complicity between corrupt politicians and underworld business people"."An entire country has watched with indignation as a minister, extremely close to the prime minister, showed off with alongside business people from the Nordis group at a table in a luxury club, where the bill reached tens of thousands of euros. Such defiant disdain is a manifestation of contempt for the Romanian people, in a context in which more than 32% of Romanians are exposed to the risk of poverty, and 250,000 children go to bed hungry every night. Prime minister Ciolacu has benefited from private airplane flights to luxury destinations on the Côte d'Azur, paid with tens or even hundreds of thousands of euros by the Nordis group. In the face of these revelations, his explanations have been incoherent, embarrassing and unconvincing, trying to hide a reality that Romanians see clearly: corruption has become visible at the top of the Government," the signatories add.According to them, under these conditions, the prime minister "can no longer remain in office, and his dismissal is a necessity to rehabilitate public life and to restore citizens' trust in state institutions.""As for his [prime minister Ciolacu] solutions for Romanians, they are as credible as his high school diploma. By the way, did you find it, Mr. Ciolacu? (...) The Ciolacu II government is disqualified because it violated its own government program, approved by a Decision of the Romanian Parliament. (...) After years of waste and pilfering, the coalition around Marcel Ciolacu is not only not backing down, but is even digging its hand deeper into Romanians' pockets than ever. Just a week after receiving the vote of confidence, the Government, under Ciolacu's leadership, adopted Emergency Ordinance No. 156/2024 of December 30, 2024, in fact, a package of unpopular measures, adopted without Parliament's vote, flagrantly violating HP No. 33 of 2024. What did the prime minister promise in Parliament in his word and under his signature and what did he deliver? Only deceit and austerity imposed overnight," the motion further claims.The signatory MPs accuse Marcel Ciolacu of "lies" on tax facilities, "attack on micro-businesses", "shameless" tax increases, "frozen pensions", "incompetence" in the management of European funds."Romania has been allocated 31 billion EUR through the Structural and Cohesion Funds (SFs) for the 2021-2027 period. However, at the end of 2024, the effective absorption rate was only 2%, i.e. 618 million EUR. These are the official data of the Ministry of Finance, data that show a failure that should have already alerted the Government and generated urgent action in the early days of 2025. In the absence of swift action, Romania risks losing billions of euros, money that could have been used to finance essential investments," reads the motion of censure.The signatories also accuse the Government of "treating people with disabilities as a burden of the state" and of being "deeply immoral" because it invokes deficit pressures to justify freezing pensions and allowances."By refusing to adjust pensions, the Executive is condemning pensioners to a continued loss of purchasing power, turning an economic measure into a social injustice. Freezing pensions, without even indexing them to inflation, is a deeply regressive measure, which affects the very social categories that a government led by a social-democratic prime minister should support. More than 910,000 pensioners receive only the minimum guaranteed pension of 1,281 RON [257.7 EUR, editor's note], and almost 3 million pensioners have pensions of less than 3,000 RON [600 EUR, editor's note], a quarter less than the minimum consumption basket for a person, set at 3,972 RON [799 EUR]. (...) Moreover, in order to aggravate the situation of Romanians, in addition to the non-indexation of pensions, there is also the freezing of allowances distributed to Romania's 3.6 million children. One out of four children in our country live in extreme poverty, and 13% of our children are malnourished," the document further informs.According to the document, the government is also "incapable of ensuring the healthy development of the Romanian nation"."The budget allocated to health is half the European average as a share of GDP, and the budget allocated to prevention is three times lower than the European average, thus pushing the medical system towards a situation avoided by all other European countries: overcrowding of hospitals. The fact that 22,000 doctors have chosen to practice abroad places our country third globally in the 'export' of doctors (after India and Pakistan) and first worldwide in terms of the share of this undesirable 'export' in the total profession (37%). 600 towns have no family doctor and the current government does not propose any measures to compensate for this," argue the signatories of the motion.They also claim that the government is "abusive and is engaging in practices deeply alien to democracy". "The campaign of intimidating citizens who are critical of government policies through police raids on their homes is unacceptable in a democratic society. In fact, the prime minister has turned the police into a political tool, and the government is jointly responsible for the abuses committed from the top. Abuses committed against peaceful citizens with different political opinions undermine the foundations of democracy and erode trust in state institutions. (...) The government led by Marcel Ciolacu is an illegitimate, anachronistic, unreliable, incompetent, immoral and abusive government," the parliamentarians who signed the motion of censure further convey.