October 11 (SeeNews) - Romanian president Klaus Iohannis said on Monday that he has tasked Dacian Ciolos, the leader of the former governing coalition's junior partner USR PLUS, with forming a government after the cabinet led by Florin Citu lost a non-confidence vote last week.
"During the discussions with parties I reiterated the importance of issues that need to be resolved regardless of who governs: the pandemic and the energy price situations," Iohannis said in a short televised statement broadcast by Digi24 TV channel.
"We are ready to take responsibility for the government and start negotiations with the other parties. Our goal is to get Romania out of the crisis and for that we need a lot of responsibility from all political forces," Dacian Ciolos said in a Facebook post shortly after the president's announcement.
"The main issues are the management of the pandemic, the upsurge in energy prices and the reforms under the National Resilience and Recovery Plan," Ciolos added.
Ciolos served as prime minister in the technocrat government between November 2015 and January 2017.
Citu's liberal cabinet lost a no-confidence vote in parliament on Tuesday requested by the opposition left-wing Social Democrat Party (PSD) and backed by former governing coalition partner USR PLUS and far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR).
PSD filed the censure motion on September 28, following a Constitutional Court decision acknowledging the existence of a legal conflict between parliament and the government on another motion against the Liberal government filed by USR PLUS and AUR on September 3, after Citu dismissed justice minister Stelian Ion. Four days later all five USR PLUS ministers in Citu's coalition cabinet, which also included UDMR representatives, resigned.
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