Sorin Grindianu says that Marcel Çolaku “definitely knows” the benefits of Victor Ponta as an economic adviser, and avoids saying clearly whether he would agree to Ponta’s return to the PSD: “He’s definitely a personality.”

• “If the prime minister considered it necessary to take him… They know each other very well.
• Marcel Cholaku was an adviser to Victor Ponta when he was prime minister, so it’s a ringing bell,” the transport minister said on Monday night on Digi 24 about Ponta’s induction into government as an honorary member. advisor to Marcel Cholaku.

Grindianu said that the co-optation of Ponta Çolaku was not discussed in the PSD, as it was about a position in the government.

• “The prime minister has advisers who receive remuneration, he also has honorary advisers, as, in my opinion, was the case with Viktor Ponta. Of course, Marcel Cholaku knows what advantages Viktor Ponta brings him,” Grindyanu said.

Responding to a persistent question, Sorin Grindeanu avoided saying clearly whether he would agree with Ponta’s return to the PSD: “I know that Viktor is a leftist. From the point of view of 2024, Romania needs a leftist president. This means the convergence of all the vectors of the left side of the political spectrum. (…) If I were the president of PSD Timiş, I would no longer be the president, I would say (…) Viktor Ponta is the former president of the party, he is a personality.”

Appointment of Ponta and connection with AUR

Prime Minister Marcel Čolaku has appointed former PSD Prime Minister Viktor Ponta, who resigned after the Colectiv tragedy, as an honorary advisor.

The former PSD president flirted with AUR last year, and in February, after a meeting with George Simion, said he was “open to economic support for any PSD or AUR project.”

Ponta now says he wants to “help” Marcel Cholak, who “treated him very well” and that the relationship with George Simion is over.

Regarding returning to the PSD, Ponta says that he did not object to Čolak, but he is a social democrat and it is normal for him to want it.

“I want to help Mr. Cholak, who treated me very well, and I will advise him on international economic issues. In the last eight years, no prime minister has taken care of foreign economic relations, and I think that this is where I can cooperate with the prime minister and help him with my expertise,” Viktor Ponta told HotNews.ro.

“The relationship with George Simion is over”

Viktor Ponta said that he would advise Marcel Čolaka purely on economic matters and that he would not receive remuneration for this position.

“I believe that the relations we have built in recent years at the external level will help Marcel Čolak in this sense to become a prime minister known at the external level, with economic partners and outside the EU,” said the former PSD leader.

When asked by HotNews.ro about his relationship with AUR, the party he flirted with last year, Viktor Ponta said that it was over:

“The relationship with George Simion and AUR has ended. I have discussed and consulted with Simion and I see that AUR now has a government economic program. I will strictly deal with the project I have now with Prime Minister Markle Čolaku.”

“Business consulting”

Former president of the PSD from 2010 to 2015 and co-president of the USL with Crin Antonescu, Victor Ponta was prime minister from May 2012 to November 2015, when he resigned due to street pressure following the Colectiv tragedy.

Ponta was expelled from the PSD in June 2017 after the party, then led by Liviu Dragnea, withdrew its political support from then-Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu, who refused to resign and appointed Ponta as head of the Government’s General Secretariat.

After the parliamentary elections of 2020, when ProRomânia did not pass the parliament, Victor Ponta retired from politics. In January 2021, he opened an economic consulting company.

“This is what I do: I give business advice. Companies from outside, not from Romania. I express my opinion about what is happening in the markets of Eastern Europe. I do not give political advice, only economic advice,” Victor Ponta said in an interview with Digi24.ro.

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