Romania's Political Turbulence
Central Europe Digest
Posted: 15 November 2007
If political commentary is often an exercise in presaging disaster, Romania can make a good run for commentators’ European Union (EU) darling of the year award. Since the country’s accession to the EU last January, Romania has had to cope with the collapse of the governing Truth and Justice Alliance, the formation of a minority government made up of Liberal and ethnic Hungarian parties, an unsuccessful referendum to impeach the President, the stalling of economic reforms, and now two motions to topple the cabinet. Though political turbulence of this kind is perhaps old news in Romania, one potential consequence of recent turmoil could be budgetary neglect. The instability is also having an impact on Romania’s European Parliamentary elections later this month, and the overall fixation with domestic politics undermines prospects for a wider debate on the country’s place in the EU.
The latest major chapter in Romania’s unfolding political crisis was the failed October 3rd vote of no confidence against the minority government of Prime Minister Călin Popescu Tăriceanu of the National Liberal Party (PNL). The vote was an attempt by the Social Democratic (PSD) opposition to boost its standing in national politics. PSD leader Mircea Geoană withdrew the parliamentary support that the cabinet had enjoyed since early April and pressed ahead with the motion against Tăriceanu. Geoană’s change of heart could be related to PNL’s attempt to take credit for the law to increase pensions – an older Social Democratic project that Tăriceanu claimed paternity for. PSD expected to control the shaky government by pushing a generous social agenda and reaping its benefits at the polls, while laying the blame for all other ills at the government’s door. Such a strategy was used with astounding results by the Democratic Party (PD) in the previous cabinet. Yet this time around PNL leaders had learned their lesson. Having calculated that it would be impossible to avoid passing the pensions law, they presented it as a Liberal initiative. Livid at such rank duplicity, Geoană tried to find a way to negotiate PSD’s entry to government from a position of strength.
In the end, the PSD motion fell short by a mere 12 ballots. The result is even more revealing as the ad hoc anti-government bloc in Parliament – comprising PSD, PD and the Liberal Democrats (PLD) – boasted on paper a comfortable margin of 17 votes. The no-confidence motion received precarious public support. Poor planning and muddled strategy also undermined PSD’s plans. After the unsuccessful May 19th referendum to impeach President Traian Băsescu for overreaching his office, the most recent no-confidence vote is the second time this year that Geoană failed in a major offensive against his political opponents.
But the crisis is set to continue as Geoană now has to confirm that he is still in charge. Immediately after the no-confidence vote’s failure, he recommended that four veteran PSD members who voted against the motion be excluded from the party ranks, and drew himself closer to a confrontation with Ion Iliescu, former Romanian President and PSD founder. After months of political turmoil, this may begin to look repetitive. Yet, in an attempt to save face, Geoană threatened the government with “all-out opposition” during the vote on the 2008 budget.
Politicizing the debate on the budget may undermine fiscal frugality. Still short on parliamentary support, the cabinet may approve bountiful social programs in order to appease PSD and improve the Liberals’ poll ratings before the November 25th elections to the European Parliament (EP). Already, Tăriceanu’s government approved a draft budget last week with a planned deficit of 2.7 percent of Romania’s GDP; the IMF has advised Bucharest to target this deficit closer to 1.5-2.0 percent. In a move that further strengthens the case for keeping expenditures in check, Standard and Poor’s (S&P) recently downgraded its outlook on Romania’s sovereign debt from “stable” to “negative” because of the country’s trade deficit and lack of policies geared toward correcting the problem. PSD continues to threaten that it will vote against the budget unless its views are taken into account.
Romania’s political tremors also act as a disincentive for parties to nominate their best people to the European Parliament. Because the EP elections are widely seen as a source of political capital before the national elections scheduled to take place next year, all parties want to make a strong showing on November 25th. Yet a Brussels assignment not only means losing contact with the local political scene, but also precludes the successful nominee from running for a seat in Parliament next year. As a result, many potential candidates view an EP nomination as a sort of demotion, and political parties are left searching for a compromise between the imperative to gather as many votes as possible and the need to retain popular politicians.
Finally, political uncertainty in Bucharest makes a meaningful discussion about Romania’s role in EU affairs nearly impossible. To date, the national “debate” about Romania’s place in the EU has largely been limited to vague statements about the need for Romanians to be good Europeans. Meanwhile, on the foreign policy front, a number of regional issues important for the EU and Romania (including independence for Kosovo and relations with Moldova) are evolving rapidly and will likely demand increasing attention. Given its preoccupation with internal questions, Romania risks being left on the sidelines of these discussions in EU circles.
Serban Popescu is a Research Fellow at the Streit Council for a Union of Democracies and a Ph.D. Candidate in Philosophy at Central European University, Budapest, Hungary.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Center for European Policy Analysis.