Former liberal leader Crin Antonescu launched a harsh attack on President Nicușor Dan, whom he accuses of being absent in both foreign and domestic politics. after nine months of mandate, Romania became “irrelevant” on the international stage, said the former presidential candidate in an intervention on Antena 3.
Antonescu states that the president would not have exercised his constitutional role in the field of foreign policy, and the consequences can be seen in the positioning of the country in the major international files:
“Romania doesn’t really have a president. In the eight, nine months beyond anecdotes, incidents, gestures, tics, all kinds of topics that can amuse us, we actually had an absence at the Cotroceni Palace on the external area almost completely and on the internal area, beyond small electoral campaign fireworks, as well. What is more worrying is this absence on the external level”.
Antonescu claims that the lack of a foreign policy strategy cannot be blamed on other political actors, but even on the presidential administration.
“I’m not the one who accuses or constantly accuses this or other troublemakers, or some Putinists or extremists. Mr. Nicușor Dan and his main advisor on foreign policy told us with the subject and preached ‘we don’t have a strategy’. I have nothing to evaluate. This is the situation”. he said.
“We’re at baggage claim”
The former liberal leader described Romania’s position in the EU as a passive one:
“Romania exists in the sense that it is taken as a package, it is in the baggage of the EU. The EU is going in one direction or another and we are also there. We are in the baggage. I have not even seen a position of Romania expressed in Romania in the sense of assuming a point of view, describing some interests or serving them”.
Crin Antonescu also criticized the president’s absence from the World Economic Forum in Davos, claiming that he would have attended if he had been in office.
“It was a special Davos, it was a special moment, it was a very special occasion for the President of Romania to say something about his country, about our world“, said Antonescu.
“Let’s face reality: we have what we chose.”
The former presidential candidate also criticized the publicly offered justifications for the president’s absence:
“If we now end up consoling ourselves with the idea that Teleleu didn’t walk, that he didn’t have anything to say – which is true, he didn’t have anything to say, or he did, but he couldn’t – and someone comes and tells us that we are retarded, late, that we are still well-seen and important in big politics because Mr. Nicușor Dan is seated in the first row when he leaves, it means that we are here. Neither the extremists, nor the Georgists, nor the Aurists are to blame. Let’s face reality: we have what we chose“.
