Former Prime Minister Victor Ponta was re-elected on Saturday as the president of Pro Romania after the party’s congress held in Bucharest. In addition, the member of the European Parliament Corina Kretsu was elected president of the National Council of Formation, and Alin Vacaru will be the general secretary, writes Agerpres.

According to a message on the party’s Facebook page, Madalina Čubotaru, Adrian Duiku, Bohdan Ivan and Florin Stanku became the first elected vice-presidents.

“In 2024, we want to offer those people in Romania who want something different than what is currently an option, and we will fight better for the ideas we believe in,” Victor Ponta said at the event, according to News.ro.

Victor Ponta is a political adviser to Cholak

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 external 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 is over. 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 that I currently have with Prime Minister Marcel Čolaku.”

“This is what I do: give business advice”

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 2020 parliamentary elections, when Pro Romania failed to enter parliament, Viktor 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.