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Prime Minister Viorica Dancila on Sunday said that President Klaus Iohannis contributed very little to the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, saying she would flunk him for that.
On a show aired on Sunday by the Antena 3 private broadcaster, she was asked about the contribution of President Iohannis to the Romanian presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first six months of 2019.
"A very small one; I would flunk the President. I did not cooperate very much with the President as far as the presidency was concerned. I am convinced that he was informed on progress under each file and discussed that at the summit of the European Council, but we did not cooperate on any major European file," Dancila said.
She said she would have expected Iohannis to talk about the fact that the Romanian government held the rotating presidency of the EU Council.
"I saw that he praised the Romanian presidency, but he did not say a word about the government. The praise was somehow presumed, and the president knows very well that great efforts have been made. That was the hard work of the Minister-delegate for European affairs, George Ciamba; the work of the Romanian Representation in Brussels, and it was this appreciation from the President, in fact a confirmation that we were right when we first said we were ready. Let us not forget that (...) during the time we assumed the presidency, the president showed his mistrust, I saw that Finland offered to take our place. Now Finland wants to get some of Romania's experts for its rotating presidency (...) there were talks to this end. Everybody has admitted that the Romanian government and the Romanian Representation managed very well the presidency. European leaders themselves, prime ministers, irrespective of their political group, even other non-EU states have commended Romania for holding the rotating presidency of the EU Council. (...) I have also seen the statements of the President. For the sake of correctness I would have expected him to say the Romanian government managed, but he said Romania did. We when we did all these things, when we took each file, when we tried and succeeded with important files - the gas directive, copyrights, the important steps we took for the Multiannual Financial Framework - we thought about Romania and said that credit will not be due to Viorica Dancila or another colleague who got involved or the minister-delegate for European affairs, but Romania will be spoken highly of," Dancila said.
She added that she had tried to co-operate with Iohannis on important projects for Romania, but she failed.
"I am a person that favours balance and consensus, and I have tried to take follow the same approach with President Iohannis. I thought we should co-operate on important projects for Romania. As you could see, I have not succeeded with all my insistence on such approach. We still have an acting deputy prime minister in charge with strategic projects. When we assess each ministry, the National Executive Committee will decide whether there will be reshuffle or restructuring. We also consider restructuring if we decide to do it," said Dancila.
