Chairman of the National Liberal Party (PNL) Florin Citu declared on Wednesday that "mathematically", a Liberal government with the Save Romania Union (USR) as junior partner has the necessary votes to get Parliament's approval.
Citu said the Liberals will also discuss with the Social Democrats, but that the mandate is for a government around PNL and headed by a Liberal Prime Minister.
"We added flexibility to the mandate, we are negotiating with all the democratic forces in the Parliament of Romania. We will now meet our USR colleagues and see after discussions how we are moving further," Citu said.
Asked if he would accept USR's request that he should not be nominated again for Prime Minister, Citu replied. "Why this question? After all, this is a discussion, we are going to discuss principles. We'll see what our colleagues have to say. It's clearly an important step on our part. There are a few things we don't give up on. First of all, we have a very important governing program. The National Recovery and Resilience Plan is already negotiated. All the Liberal principles are on the table, the rest is up for discussion," said Florin Citu.
Asked if he would accept the same USR proposals for ministers, he replied: "We will now sit down for talks and then we'll see the conclusions."
He said that the PNL will also discuss with the PSD, but with the same mandate. "We have clear goals in the governing program we do not abdicate from. We have negotiated with the European Commission the reforms we do not renounce. There will be no room for any form of populism to blow up the country's stability. We have very clear aspects to negotiate. (...) I said it very clearly that we are going with a governing mandate around PNL, which means a Liberal Prime Minister," Florin Citu said.
According to him, "the negotiations must take exactly as long as it is necessary to reach stability and come to terms on a government capable of getting Romania through this period."
Citu also mentioned that he had a discussion with President Klaus Iohannis, Agerpres informs.