Some companies that are unhappy with certain government decisions might have an interest in bringing instigators to the streets, the country’s finance minister Eugen Teodorovici said in a TV show, quoted by News.ro.

The statement came in the wider context of the recent protests, namely the August 10 one which ended in violence.

“If the finance minister or the government apply a measure that is contrary to the interest of some companies in Romania and in the world, who could believe that these companies will not have an interest in bringing some instigators to the streets, with the financial resources they have and not only, to instigate, to create a false problem? It is a hypothesis that could happen,” Teodorovici said.

When massive street protests emerged at the beginning of 2017, PSD leader Lviu Dragnea pointed the finger at multinationals for supporting the demonstrations against the government, which had passed the controversial emergency ordinance OUG 13 that partly decriminalized some corruption offenses. While he was in office, former PM Mihai Tudose also argued that multinationals were behind the opposition to the government’s fiscal measures and accused international banks active in Romania of hiding their profits.

Teodorovici also said he had never seen a situation like the current one. “Having worked for very many years in the administration, I have never seen anything like this. […] A state of tension, of conflict, which is continuously kept and increasingly so.”

The minister said that people are free to protest but the government should not be changed without a vote.

“I look at the governmental area and I look at those in the [e.n. Victoriei] square, they protest for various things. There is a discontent, they are free to protest, but within a certain limit, because we need to have this very clear – a government shouldn’t be changed without a vote […] If we show once again that we change governments in other way than by vote, than it is very clear that this is a weakness for those from outside that might have interest,” he said.

The participants at the August 10 protest aimed at stating dissatisfaction with the ruling PSD – ALDE coalition and current government and their policies. Since last Friday, protesters gathered in Victoriei Square every evening, until Friday 14.

Another PSD prime minister, Victor Ponta, resigned in 2015 after street protests following the Colectiv nightclub fire.

The current government, led by prime minister Viorica Dancila is the third since the beginning of 2017, after PSD won the Parliamentary elections of December 2016. The Social Democratic Party dismissed two of its prime ministers in just a year as both of them ended up in disagreement with party leader Liviu Dragnea.

editor@romania-insider.com