Romania's PM Designate Unveils Distribution of Cabinet Seats Among Coalition Allies

The centre-right Democratic-Liberal Party, PD-L, and the leftist Social Democratic Party, PSD, which won the most votes in the November 30 general election, signed an agreement on Sunday to form a coalition cabinet.

PD-L has won 115 seats in the lower chamber and 51 in the Senate. PSD, which ran on a joint ticket with the smaller Conservative Party, got 114 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 49 seats in the upper house. Thus the two parties would jointly control 329 of the 471 seats in parliament.

Under the terms of the agreement, the PD-L gets the following cabinet seats:

- Ministry of Public Finance

- Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport

- Ministry of Economy

- Ministry of Defence

- Ministry of Regional Development and Housing

- Ministry of Communications and Information Society

- Ministry of Culture

- Ministry of Youth and Sport

- Ministry of Tourism

The PSD quota comprises the following ministries:

- Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Protection

- Ministry of Education and Research

- Ministry of Health

- Ministry of Agriculture

- Ministry of Internal Affairs

- Ministry of Foreign Affairs

- Ministry of Environment

- Ministry of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises and Business Environment

- The Minister without portfolio, responsible for relations with parliament

The Justice Ministry will be headed by an independent expert, the two parties have agreed. A deputy prime minister, who will also be a PSD representative, will be in charge of the government's European Affairs Department and state regulators, party leader Mircea Geoana said.

PSD and PD-L will present their four-year tenure programme in parliament on Friday.