Dacian Cioloș, a former European Union commissioner who served as prime minister of Romania in 2016, resigned from the Save Romania Union (USR) party to form a new political vehicle. He is the founder of PLUS party that merged with (was absorbed by) reformist USR.

Besides Cioloș, MEPs Ramona Strugariu, Dragoș Pîslaru, Alin Mituța, and Dragoș Tudorache resigned on May 31 as members of USR.

They accuse the USR leadership of "leading the party to irrelevance."

USR president Catalin Drulă had warned Cioloș that such a step would only help the ruling coalition.

"We see in the USR leadership neither the desire nor the maturity to accept the mistakes of the past and to change a direction that leads the party to political irrelevance," the five MEPs said in a joint statement.

The five MEPs, at the same time, launched a party called REPER, the acronym for the Romanian version of "We renew Romania's European Project".

This is supposed to be "a new political initiative for dialogue and interaction with society and the business community, bringing together human resources and solutions to current crises and challenges in Romanian society: cost and quality life, energy and food security, the rule of law and respect for justice, climate and digital transformation."

The five MEPs remain affiliated with the European Parliament's Renew Europe group.

(Photo: Dacian Cioloș Facebook Page)

andrei@romania-insider.com