Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis and the leader of the National Liberal Party (PNL), former prime minister Ludovic Orban, have reportedly agreed to name Liberal finance minister Florin Citu to lead the new center-right Government taking shape after the December 6 parliamentary elections.

Ludovic Orban and Florin Citu both had separate meetings with president Klaus Iohannis on Wednesday, December 6. After these meetings, Orban presented the proposal to the other PNL leaders to get their endorsement, G4Media.ro reported.

The Liberal leaders approved Citu’s nomination. They also agreed to support Orban for president of the Chamber of Deputies.

Orban, who has been at the helm of a Liberal Government with minority support in the Parliament since November 2019, resigned on Monday, December 7, after his party’s defeat in the parliamentary elections. He implied he would not try to get a new nomination as prime minister but said he would get involved in the negotiations for creating a center-right ruling coalition.

PNL, which took little over 25% of the votes on Sunday, will join forces with the USR-PLUS alliance (15%), and the Democrat Hungarian Union (UDMR) to form a new Government, leaving the Social Democratic Party (PSD), which got a score of almost 30% in the elections, in opposition. The Liberals excluded carrying out negotiations with PSD and the Alliance for Romanians’ Unity (AUR), a nationalist party that took over 9% of the votes in the elections.

Orban had to step down to make this coalition possible, as USR-PLUS leaders said they didn’t want to be part of a Government led by him. However, the Liberals will likely keep the prime minister seat. The party had three potential candidates for this position: defense minister Nicoale Ciuca, who took over as acting PM after Orban’s resignation, finance minister Florin Citu, and EU funds minister Marcel Bolos. However, USR-PLUS leaders and civic organizations objected to appointing a military (Ciuca is a retired general and former chief of the Romanian Army) as prime minister.

Ludovic Orban reportedly told his party colleagues how he and president Klaus Iohannis agreed on appointing Florin Citu for prime minister. Iohannis, who is a former teacher, apparently told Orban that they should each write on a piece of paper the name of a potential PM and then compare notes. According to Orban, they both wrote the same name: Florin Citu, G4Media.ro reported.

The president of the Social Democrats’ National Council, Vasile Dincu, argues that Citu’s nomination is “not serious," and that it represents a strategy to throw off the attention while preparing another candidate behind the scene, according to Digi24.ro.

Who is Florin Citu, potentially Romania’s next prime minister?

Florin Citu, 48, has been a senator since December 16. He was appointed finance minister in November 2019, after the Liberals overthrew the Social Democrat Government by no-confidence motion. In February this year, president Klaus Iohannis appointed him as prime minister-designate, after Orban had resigned to try and force triggering early elections. However, after the COVID-19 crisis started, in early March, the Liberals gave up their plan for early elections and Citu renounced his appointment to allow president Klaus Iohannis to appoint Ludovic Orban once again as prime minister.

Florin Citu comes from the banking sector, where he worked as an economist and treasurer. He worked as an economist for the National Bank of New Zealand, between 2001 and 2003, and for the European Investment Bank, in Luxembourg, between 2003 and 2005. Then, he was chief economist and later Head of Financial Markets at ING Bank in Bucharest, between 2006 and 2011. He left the bank after the position he occupied was restructured, a different way of saying that he was fired, a decision that he challenged in court.

Citu’s activity as head treasurer of ING Bank is sometimes mentioned in relation to the so-called speculative attack against the local currency in 2008, amid the international financial crisis. Romania’s National Bank (BNR) accused at that time three local banks of trying to induce a liquidity crisis and increase interest rates. ING was one of those banks, according to Ziarul Financiar. However, Citu denied any involvement in that episode.

Since taking over as finance minister, and especially after the COVID-19 crisis hit the local economy, Citu has been advocating that BNR should further reduce interest rates to allow a quicker recovery of the local economy.

editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Inquam Photos / George Calin)