The first vice-president of the PNL, MEP Raresh Bohdan, announced that next week the coalition will determine how this year’s elections will be organized, whether five relevant elections will be held, for which he noted that 800 million euros have been allocated in the budget, or whether local elections are combined with the 1st presidential round, or European Parliament elections with local elections, News.ro reports.

• “This is a broad discussion, the decision was not made even the day before yesterday, there will be more rounds of discussions on Monday and Tuesday. The electoral legislative calendar tells us that next week we have to decide what we are going to do. If we hold five rounds of elections, for which the budget of the Ministry of Internal Affairs provided for four billion lei, i.e. 800 million euros, we will combine local elections with the first presidential round, or European parliamentary elections with local elections. , then for sure we will talk about an economy that will reach, if there are two mergers, up to 500 million, if not, somewhere up to 650 million euros compared to 800,” Raresh Bohdan said on Saturday at a press conference held in Pitesti.

He noted that it is important to have representativeness of elected officials.

• “Even if democracy costs money, we have to be very careful what we do with the money, and also, perhaps most importantly, ensure the representativeness of the elected. Because at the European level, pro-European parties are fighting extremism, and I would very much like to see, for example, the largest possible turnout in Romania. The merger with local elections will lead to a voter turnout of more than 50 percent, which will allow for increased representativeness, including for MEP lists, for the 33 MEPs who will represent Romania in the European Parliament. Otherwise, the ratings are somewhere between 33-35%, and the history of parliamentary elections shows us that attendance is not the highest if there is no other anchor,” said the PNL leader.

He also cited examples of other countries where elections will be combined.

• “Of course, there were questions related to why this happened, that it did not happen in other countries and that it would be undemocratic or would be a violation of democracy. no In Germany local and regional elections are held simultaneously with European parliaments in 9 out of 16 states, in Italy out of 20 regions local and regional elections are held simultaneously with European parliaments in 12 regions. In Belgium and Flanders, including parliamentary elections, not only local and regional elections are organized. It is the same in Luxembourg. Hungary holds local and regional elections, as well as elections to the European Parliament. Ireland too. And examples can be continued. Fewer than nine European states out of 27 organize, alongside elections to the European Parliament, one or two internal, local or regional elections, or local, regional or, in the case of Belgium, including parliamentary elections. Therefore, European examples are as eloquent as possible,” said Raresh Bohdan.

He also denied accusations that if the European parliamentary elections were combined with the local ones, their topics would not overlap.

• “Regarding another criticism from the opposition camp that if such elections were organized, the European issue and the issue related to local and regional government would not overlap and the seriousness of analysis and debate on local issues would be false, I tell you , that this is as false as possible, because today you cannot develop local and regional communities – and we have many examples in Romania – only with European money. When you have European money at your disposal and when you can do water supply, gas supply, and we have an example, particularly here in Argesh, you can do sewage, you can repair schools, you can repair hospitals, you can modernize railways or roads. with the help of European money, I think that the general debate between local development, local and regional administration, respectively, the topic of European funds and life in Europe is something that perfectly overlaps and would only be beneficial,” also said Raresh Bohdan.

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