Romania’s president Basescu: No troop withdrawal. PM Tariceanu starts campaign for early general elections by using the 'pacifist' issue (Jul 2, 2006)

Jul 2, 2006 (Romania Report)

BUCHAREST, Romania -- Romania will not withdraw its troops from Iraq, President Traian Basescu said Friday following a meeting of the country’s top defence council (CSAT). "The decision was only delayed today," PM Tariceanu said, adding that he continued to believe that the presence of Romanian troops in Iraq was "unpopular and no longer useful." On another hand, the Liberals—divided by their leader's practically illegal intrusion in matters of foreign policy—might face dissolution.

"The proposal to withdraw the troops was rejected," said Basescu following the meeting of CSAT—which has the constitutional power to order military missions.

Premier Calin Popescu Tariceanu ordered Defense Minister Teodor Atanasiu on Thursday to propose withdrawing Romania's troops by year end. Basescu called the proposal "unacceptable" and accused Tariceanu of damaging the country's credibility abroad, AP said on Friday.

"One cannot change the country’s foreign policy overnight all by himself, especially when you leave your partners in difficulty," Basescu said in o move to put the blame on PM Tariceanu’s unexpected announcement, on Thursday, when he asked that Romania removes its soldiers from Iraq.

However, Basescu said Romania was negotiating with U.S.-led coalition forces to reduce the number of troops. He said Romania has agreed to maintain 628 troops but to pull out a group of de-miners, and two groups of military police. He said more talks would be held London next week, AP reports.

"When its allies are facing difficulties, Romania can't take its toys and leave," he said. "Its troops are not carrying out aggressive actions but merely helping to provide security for citizens. Romania needs to prove it has a reliable foreign policy."

Basescu said that at Friday's CSAT meeting only PM Tariceanu and Defense Minister Atanasiu supported withdrawing the troops. According to the law a CSAT decision would require a consensus in the council, which consists of several ministers and intelligence chiefs. Other two Liberals in CSAT—i.e. the Foreign Affairs Minister Razvan Ungureanu and the Minister of Finance Sebastian Vladescu voted against PM Tariceanu, their own party leader.

The British embassy in Bucharest welcomed the council's decision against the pullout. Most of Romania's troops operate in southern Iraq under British command, AP reports.

However, PM Tariceanu persisted in his previously expressed position. The council's decision to extend the mission must be ratified by parliament, a point emphasized by Tariceanu after the meeting. "The decision was only delayed today," he said, adding that he continued to believe that the presence of Romanian troops in Iraq was "unpopular and no longer useful."

Tariceanu's announcement Thursday took many by surprise. U.S. and British diplomats in Bucharest said they had not been informed of the prime minister's plans and asked for urgent clarification. Romania’s Foreign Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu suggested he would resign if Tariceanu did not change his position.

Defence minister Atanasiu had said pulling troops out of Iraq would save Romania $90 million (€72 million) in 2007 alone. He added he wanted to withdraw the troops when they are next due to be rotated in November or December.



Liberal PM Tariceanu started campaigning for early polls but he might soon loose control over his party

By raising the troops’ withdrawal issue, Liberal PM Tariceanu eventually wanted to put Basescu’s back against the wall, in a bid to score some points in the possible early elections next year—asthe country is scheduled for EU accession on Jan 1st 2007.

Opinion polls show that Tariceanu’s and his National Liberal Party went down since coming to power back in 2004, while their allies—the Democrat Party which supports the highly popular president Basescu—are more favoured by the likely voters.

Foreign observers of Romania’s political environment should take into account that the country has a long history of Byzantine-style volatile and sometimes exotic political manoeuvres. Now, it seems that an intricate political chess game is just re-commencing and it fuels a somehow deviant delight of those involved.

The general elections in 2004 brought about a ruling a coalition formed by the Liberal-Democrat Alliance ‘DA’ and other two smaller parties—the Humanist Party (now revamped as Conservative) and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians from Romania. The Social-Democrats lost the power and eventually went in opposition together with the die-hard nationalists from the ‘Greater Romania’ Party.

Since then, the Social-Democrats faced a significant decrease in the opinion polls as some of their prominent members—such as the former PM Adrian Nastase—were prosecuted in corruption cases. Former Foreign Affairs Minister Mircea Geoana took the party’s leadership and tried to perform a facelift by removing many of those suspected of corruption.

Suspecting that their main allies—i.e. the democrats—would have no problems in forming a future parliamentary majority together with Geoana’s ‘reformed’ Social-Democrats, Tariceanu’s Liberals are now trying hard to regain momentum in order to tackle the early general elections in a better shape.

Following several image campaigns failures, the Liberal strategists eventually detected what they thought to be a good political topic to outsmart Basescu—namely the topic of Romania’s military presence abroad. Apparently this is a good point. The populist incentive of the pacifist and anti-war feelings of the likely voters always delivered results—see Spain and Italy for more recent examples.

As, recently, a Romanian soldier was killed in action in Afghanistan and the opinion polls show that the country’s military presence in Iraq is unpopular, PM Tariceanu seems to have chosen this topic as main weapon in his more than one year long ‘war’ with Basescu.

This ‘war’ even has a name—local journalists called it ‘the war of palaces’, as the President is headquartered at in ‘Cotroceni Palace’ and ‘Victoria Palace’ is the Govt’s HQ. During the Social-Democrat rule (2000-2004) former President Ion Iliescu and former PM Adrian Nastase also experienced harsh differences of opinion. The animosities between them reached the pick during the presidential race in 2004, when Iliescu apparently chose to back Basescu rather his party fellow Nastase. Eventually Basescu won the head of state office and since then he never even pronounced Iliescu’s name in any of his speeches aimed to attack the Social-Democrats now in opposition.

Starting in spring 2005, the disputes between Basescu and Tariceanu emerged when the President asked the PM to resign in order to go for early general elections.

At that moment the Liberal-Democrat ruling alliance counted for more than 50 percent in the opinion polls and early elections would have provided the alliance with absolute parliamentary majority and with the opportunity to form a strong government by leaving out Conservative and Ethnic Hungarians parties. And once wining the elections, Liberals and Democrats were to merge into a powerful centre-right popular party aiming to become member of the Eupean Peoples Party (EPP) group.

PM Tariceanu agreed upon this plan in the first place and publicly said he will resign. But he suddenly changed his mind because a prominent Liberal personality—i.e. the local oil tycoon Dinu Patriciu—was indicted for financial crimes charges. Therefore, Tariceanu eventually refused to resign, the early polls were set aside, and the ‘war of palaces’ immediately started—feeding the tabloid-oriented local media with as many ‘cover stories’ and talk-shows subjects as they needed.

Since then, President Basescu managed to outsmart PM Tariceanu in most of the issues likely to provide him with a constant popular support. With one notable exception—the defence and homeland security issues. Basescu is an unconditional supporter of the U.S. post-911 defence and security approach. He repeatedly stated that Romanian troops will stay in Iraq as long it is needed. As for the homeland security matters, Basescu promoted a set of bills providing the intelligence community with increased powers.

Tariceanu opposed Basescu’s homeland security initiatives by using the usual liberal clichés on freedom of speech and human rights. He also tried promote a ‘lustration bill’ or to open the ‘Pandora’s box’ of the Ceausescu’s ‘Securitate’ former collaborationists’ files—thus aiming to somehow harm Basescu. In both cases Tariceanu scored low in gaining popular support.

PM Calin Popescu-Tariceanu last attempt of discrediting President Basescu—i.e. the proposition that Romania withdraws its troops from Iraq, as this military mission is costly, no longer necessary, not in line with the country’s commitments to the Intl. organizations, and contrary to the present European trend—was very close to trigger significant worries abroad regarding the country’s ability to act in accordance with its officially declared foreign policy strategic vectors.

Romania has a long bitter history of changing sides during military conflicts. Of course, Romanians may find the excuse that their country was always squeezed by the big European powers’ interests. In exchange, the big powers—Russia excluded—do keep a perception that Romania did not always keep its promises in exchange of the help they actually (or pretend to have) provided Romania with. In the particular case of the military conflict in Iraq we do not think that France or Germany would actually condemn Romania for keeping its word, even if France and Germany do not share the U.S. vision on the Iraqi issue.

There is a matter of principles here—Romania has to show to all its allies that the country’s commitments, once engaged, are to be fulfilled. In the hypothetical case in which some Romania’s EU ally, France let’s say, would soon call for a UN or a NATO action against the Middle East, and would ask Romania to provide political and military support, would it be likely that the ‘pacifist’ PM Tariceanu stands as a credible partner? In short: how trustful Romania would become (as an ally, and NATO, and UN member) in case it now unilaterally and abruptly withdraws from Iraq without even consulting its allies (U.S. and U.K.), as Tariceanu intended to do?

Tariceanu’s ‘media stunt’ immediately resulted into critical reactions even inside the Liberal party. Some six prominent PNL personalities yesterday released a press statement requesting that party members oust Tariceanu at once. The statement reads that the Liberal president Tariceanu triggered a diplomatic incident and, for the sake of the National Liberal party (PNL) survival, there is need for a firm and swift reaction to create an alternative political platform aimed at annihilating ‘Tariceanu’s group’.

The turmoil within the Liberal party escalated today, Sunday Jul 2, as Romania’s Defence Minister and member of the Liberal Party Teodor Atanasiu said in a press conference that Liberal ministers Sebastian Vladescu and Razvan Ungureanu should resign from their public positions following their negative vote in CSAT over Liberals’ request that Romania pulled out its troops from Iraq. Atanasiu said the two ministers should follow the example of Mona Musca, who also voted against some Liberal initiative and who eventually resigned from her ministerial office and from the party leadership structure as well.



Romania Report (also using AP)