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USR's Drula: USR will vote for lifting Citu's immunity, support Voiculescu to run for EP
Save Romania Union (USR) MPs will vote next week for lifting the immunity of senator Florin Citu, as requested by the National Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA), leader of the Union, MP Catalin Drula, said on Friday.
"So, every citizen, whether a parliamentarian or not, is equally responsible before the law. So we will vote 'in favour,' as we would vote in any kind of case," Drula told the press after attending a debate organised by USR and the Renew Europe group.
Asked if Vlad Voiculescu's candidacy on the USR lists for the European Parliament is still valid, he said that Voiculescu is a victim, therefore he will run for the European Parliament.
According to him, what is happening "is an obvious political attack, an aberrant judicial action," and the decision to purchase covid vaccines belonged to both the Government and president Klaus Iohannis.
"Remember that it was a situation where we wanted to vaccinate people every day, because it meant lives saved and the economy opened faster. It is a decision that belonged to the prime minister at the time, Florin Citu, that belonged to president Klaus Iohannis, who attended the European Council meeting, and there are minutes in which he agreed to this mechanism," Drula explained.
He maintained that the aim is to prevent the formation of a right-wing pole in Romania.
"We have been warned that if we make the right-wing pole, and do not calm down, and if we fight the current power as a democratic opposition, we will lose it. That's what's happening these days. (...) They are desperate because they have destroyed the economy, they have destroyed the budget and after 2024 they know they will not be there and they will not govern," the USR chairman said.
The National Anti-Corruption Directorate announced that it had sent to the prosecutor general of the Public Prosecutor's Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice the referral of a case to the president of Romania and the Senate for the formulation of requests for criminal prosecution against three people for committing crimes of abuse of office regarding the purchase of COVID vaccines.
According to judicial sources, they are former prime minister Florin Citu and former health ministers Vlad Voiculescu and Ioana Mihaila.
