Chairperson of Save Romania Union (USR) Elena Lasconi said on Wednesday that she proposed at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace consultations that the money not used from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR should go to a defence component, a plan to participate in Ukraine's reconstruction, the establishment of a European defence task force in the hybrid war, countering disinformation measures, mentioning that she asked the interim president, Ilie Bolojan, for clarifications on the annulment of the elections.
"I had talks with the interim president, Mr. Bolojan, at Cotroceni today, at 12:00, and I would like to thank Mr. Bolojan and also to welcome the decision to organize such consultations, which were extremely natural, normal, civilized. And I would like to congratulate him. I told him that we did not go there with conditions, because the discussion was very constructive between us, but I told him that Romania must show leadership and I encouraged Mr. Ilie Bolojan, the interim president of Romania, to show this at the European Council on March 6," Lasconi said in Parliament.
She mentioned that USR did not go to Cotroceni to draw "red lines", but with "constructive solutions and proposals for Romania to be relevant abroad".
"We need to increase defence spending, but I proposed that the money that is not used from the PNRR should go to a defence component, and that this money should be redirected both for defence and for infrastructure. Because there's no point in us having state-of-the-art tanks if we don't have a motorway or a bridge that that tank can go on. I also want to welcome Ursula von der Leyen's decision to remove defence spending from the deficit calculation. We need to invest more in the defence industry and it would be good to have Poland as a model," Lasconi added.
The USR leader also mentioned that she proposed to the interim president a governmental coordination plan in order to participate in the reconstruction of Ukraine, also based on the Polish model.
"We also suggested to him that we should have permanent coordination with Maia Sandu in order to take over and promote the security interests of the Republic of Moldova," Lasconi added.
According to her, it was agreed that "no negotiations for peace in Ukraine are possible without Ukraine and the European Union at the table".
"If you're not at the table, you're on the menu. Russia is the aggressor, let's not forget that for a second, because every day people die in Ukraine. Let's not forget that Putin has attacked not only Ukraine, but the whole of Europe," Elena Lasconi added.
The USR leader mentioned that she advocated for the formation of a European defence task force in the hybrid war.
She added that she requested clarifications on the annulment of the elections.
"All Romanians want answers to the question why last year's elections in Romania were annulled. So, I asked for clarifications about the annulment of the elections. I asked for the heads of the secret services to come and provide explanations in Parliament and I urged him, as a moderator, as a mediator, to come up with clear measures against disinformation, anti-manipulation and fake news and to come up with concrete solutions to put the institutions in charge of this to work," Lasconi further said.
Asked about sending Romanian troops to Ukraine as peacekeeping troops, Elena Lasconi said: "Our point of view is the same as that of European leaders, many European leaders".
"This is not the time to talk about sending peacekeeping troops, once again - I repeat, peacekeeping, for everyone to understand. Since we don't have peace in Ukraine, we don't even have a truce, I think it's premature to talk about that," Lasconi also said.
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