After the failure of negotiations in the Coalition to establish a merger of elections in 2024, the leaders of PSD and PNL will debate again on Friday. For the first time since the creation of the coalition, Marcel Čolaku and Nicolae Chuke have released their arrows through statements to the press. Unofficially, the Social Democrats and Liberals claim that the chances of reaching a consensus between the parties are minimal.

PSD and PNL leaders will meet on Friday for a new round of talks on the 2024 election calendar. The first election is the European Parliament election on June 9. Procedurally, the Government should make a decision on holding elections in early March.

As for their possible combination with local elections, the Government should make a separate decision to postpone them to June 9, having previously amended the law. The deadline for the Government to issue the document is the beginning of April.

If the PSD and PNL leaders do not agree on the calendar, the talks could theoretically continue in the coming days, but they cannot be extended too much due to reasons related to the internal organization of the parties (installation of candidates at the local level).

NLP President Nicolae Chuke publicly announced that any continuation of discussions after Friday is inappropriate. “I think that any continuation after Friday is inappropriate and there is no point in talking about it any more because, on the one hand, we are occupying the public space with a topic that has been going on for too long, and at the end of the day, we need to see what other problems need to be solved. (…) This is a negotiation process, and we must follow it to the end and announce the final decision,” Chuke said.

On the other hand, the president of the PSD, Marcel Çolaku, said that unification of elections is possible only if an agreement is reached on the program of all elections in this election year. He also noted that he wants to make changes to the legislation for the entire election year, not piecemeal. “Now we are not uniting, then we think about how to approach the elections,” Čolaku explained.

In addition, Cholaku added, saying that the PSD assumes the stability of the country and agrees to enter the government with the PNL. The PSD president stressed that if the liberals leave the government, he will hand over his mandate as prime minister to President Klaus Iohannis.

“If it is the political decision of the coalition partners to leave the government, President Klaus Iohannis will receive my mandate as prime minister. I entered this project after discussions, including with the President of Romania, that we will lead this coalition and government until at least 2024. If we are upset that we no longer have a prime minister, even though we had a prime minister for three and a half years, with an electoral score of 20%, and we think it is okay to continue to have prime ministers or certain solutions, I believe that this is the wrong approach,” the prime minister said.

• Marcel Cholaku: If the NLP is upset that it does not have a prime minister, this is the wrong approach / I will submit my mandate if the NLP leaves the government

Nicolae Chuke’s response came a day later in a Facebook post in which the PNL chairman talks about principles and commitments, pointing the finger at “governors who have forgotten this motivation,” but without naming any names.

“I came to the government to bring stability. In politics, in government, in society. I call on the governors, who have forgotten this motivation in recent years, to remember their commitment, to remember what we were going to achieve for Romanians and for the country in difficult times. In the context of these days saturated with political discourse, not that we forget that we are here for people. Not for us and not for functions. Let’s remember what we promised the Romanians. We did not promise conflicts to anyone, this is not our goal,” Chuke wrote on Facebook.

• Chuke reminds Cholak that maybe he forgot something. Message of the head of PNL

How both sides position themselves in the new round of negotiations

We will remind, the leaders of the Coalition have been discussing the possibility of unifying the elections for more than a month. Discussions reached the division of candidacies at the level of district mayors. A week ago, the PSD made a new request, which stipulated an understanding regarding the unification of local and European parliamentary elections: the support of the liberals for the presidential candidate Marcel Čolaka.

In this context, the liberals in the Politburo decided to gather and enter the election campaign for all four rounds of elections without any agreement with the PSD. In this connection, the liberals canceled the meeting of the National Council of the NLP (to approve the calendar of joint elections) scheduled for Sunday.

Unofficially, the liberals believe that there are few chances to reach an agreement, and refer to the change in the position and attitude of their partners in power, which caught them by surprise.

“Marcel Čolaku proposed in the Coalition such a scenario of combining local elections with elections to the European Parliament, we had analyzes on combining local and parliamentary elections. They stepped up with this proposal and we accepted that then, when the discussion comes to an end, they will change the terms and ask for a full calendar for all 4 types of elections and support for the PSD presidential candidate. In this context, we have decided to close ranks for the four types of elections, and it is impossible to accept PSD’s conditions,” the PNL leader told HotNews.ro.

On the other hand, the Social Democrats maintain a position of strength and do not want to concede to the liberals. In addition, the PSD leader explained to HotNews.ro that the party cannot agree to support the PNL presidential candidate because the liberals have nothing to offer in exchange.

“I am the prime minister because I have the majority in the parliament, I have the presidency in the chamber, the general mayor is Firea or Nikushor, not PNL by any means, the European commissioner appoints him as the prime minister, that is, Čolak. I am not interested in increasing the PNL, my goal is to keep it at 15%, this is enough to govern together,” says the PSD leader.

How relations in the Coalition collapsed

We will remind, at the meeting at the beginning of the week in the SDP Coalition, he asked to postpone all candidacies, including the joint candidacy for the presidential elections. Liberals asked to make a decision only on combining local elections with elections to the European Parliament.

Discussions stopped at the presidential candidacy. In the PSD, Sorin Grindeanu, Mihai Tudose, Paul Stanescu demanded the creation of a full calendar for the 2024 elections and the establishment of a joint PSD presidential candidate.

It is currently unclear whether the PSD leader wants to run for president, but at a coalition meeting, the Social Democrats asked the liberals to do so.

It should be noted that the PSD leaders knew that the PNL would never agree to support a PSD presidential candidate. In informal discussions, the liberals offered the social democrats the positions of administrative and executive power (prime minister, chairman of the Chamber of Deputies, chairman of the SRI).

The new request put forward by the PSD is to dynamize the negotiations in the Coalition.