September 6 (SeeNews) - The centre-right bloc formed by Save Romania Union (USR) and PLUS parties, a junior partner in the governing coalition, said that together with opposition right-wing nationalist party AUR they have filed a censure motion against prime minister Florin Citu after he dismissed justice minister Stelian Ion.
"We filed the censure motion. We believe that if PNL will propose another prime minister, the coalition can go on. Florin Citu no longer has our support," USR leader Dan Barna said during a news conference on Friday evening, following unsuccessful coalition talks.
Barna added that all USR PLUS ministers plan to resign this week. The bloc holds five portfolios in Citu's cabinet: health; EU funds; transport; economy and research; innovation and digitalisation.
"If the censure motion fails, USR PLUS will become an opposition party, while if it succeeds, we will start start talks with the National Liberal Party (PNL) and with the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR)."
President Klaus Iohannis lashed out at USR PLUS' joining forces with the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR).
"It is worrying and extremely serious that a party that claims to have democratic, reformist values, is allying with a party with antagonistic visions towards Romania's Euro-Atlantic values," Iohannis wrote on Facebook on Saturday.
On Sunday evening, Socialist Democrat Party (PSD) leader Marcel Ciolacu said in a televised statement for local TV station Antena 3 that the party will support the USR-PLUS-AUR censure motion only if the parties agree on the necessity of early elections. Ciolacu also said that he suspects some of the signatures under the censure motion are fake.
In order to pass, the motion needs the support of at least 234 MPs in the 465-seat parliament. PNL and USR PLUS hold 134 and 80 seats, respectively, PSD has 157, AUR controls 43, while UDMR holds 29. The remaining seats are held by 18 MPs representing minorities, and 4 independents.
On Thursday, USR PLUS announced that it is withdrawing support for Citu after he dismissed Stelian Ion, the justice minister nominated by USR PLUS, for refusing to back an emergency decree on a 50 billion lei ($12 billion/10 billion euro) financing scheme for development of rural areas.
For his part, Ion said in a Facebook post that his removal was related to the ongoing procedure of appointment of high-ranking prosecutors, which the justice ministry is planning to change.
On Thursday, the government appointed interior minister Lucian Bode to serve as interim justice minister.
Citu's decision came a few weeks before an election within his liberal PNL party, in which he will challenge party leader Ludovic Orban.
In June, a censure motion against the government over the poor quality of projects proposed under the country's National Recovery and Resilience Plan failed.
The censure motion was backed by 201 MPs from PSD and AUR. In order to pass, it needed the support of 234 MPs.
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