VZCZCXRO4863
PP RUEHIK
DE RUEHBM #0863/01 3580617
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 240617Z DEC 09
FM AMEMBASSY BUCHAREST
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0202
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BUCHAREST 000863 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EUR/CE ASCHEIBE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL RO
SUBJECT: ROMANIAN PARLIAMENT APPROVES NEW CABINET, ENDING 
PROTRACTED POLITICAL CRISIS 
 
REF: A. 08 BUCHAREST 1008 
     ¶B. BUCHAREST 669 
     ¶C. BUCHAREST 691 
     ¶D. BUCHAREST 756 
     ¶E. BUCHAREST 857 
 
BUCHAREST 00000863  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶1.  (SBU) SUMMARY.  On December 23 the Romanian Parliament 
approved the new Cabinet assembled by Prime Minister 
designate Emil Boc with an unexpectedly large majority.  The 
new Cabinet includes members of the Democratic Liberal Party 
(PDL), the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania 
(UDMR) and non-affiliated politicians.  This vote effectively 
ends a three month-long political crisis triggered by the 
collapse of the former governing coalition (PDL and Social 
Democrats, or PSD) in late September (reftel B).  The 
governing program presented by the new Cabinet continues the 
austerity programs supported by the previous Boc Cabinet, 
maintains current taxation levels, and suggests new public 
sector lay-offs in the coming months in order to comply with 
the IMF requirements.  END SUMMARY. 
 
A NEW COALITION GOVERNMENT, A NEW PARLIAMENTARY MAJORITY 
 
¶2.  (SBU) On December 23, the joint chambers of the Romanian 
Parliament voted 276 to 135 to approve a new Boc Cabinet.  As 
PDL and UDMR together control only 42 percent of the 
parliamentary seats (198 out of 470), the extra support came 
from ethnic minority representatives (18 votes) and from a 
newly-constituted group of "independents" (24 votes).  The 
vote count indicates that approximately three dozen PSD and 
National Liberal Party (PNL) legislators also voted for the 
government, likely out of fear that a protracted battle could 
lead to early parliamentary elections. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) President Basescu's re-election has triggered a 
reconfiguration of the political spectrum.  The UDMR, which 
had aligned itself with PSD and PNL before the presidential 
vote but was desperate to re-enter government, switched camps 
on December 19 and join the President's PDL as the junior 
governing partner.  After brief negotiations, UDMR was given 
control over three Cabinet portfolios: culture, health, and 
environment and forests.  The UDMR chair, Marko Bela, will 
serve as the deputy PM.  The caucus of "independent" 
legislators also joined PDL in exchange for an important 
ministerial portfolio--defense--for their leader, Gabriel 
Oprea. 
 
THE NEW CABINET: A POLITICAL PATCHWORK 
 
¶4.  (SBU) The new PDL-UDMR Cabinet includes the prime 
minister, a deputy prime minister and 15 ministers (down from 
19 in September).  The new Cabinet reflects not only the new 
parliamentary majority but also President Basescu's pledge to 
include the opposition and non-affiliated experts.  Basescu, 
in a move meant to illustrate his new conciliatory line, 
openly invited former PSD Labor Minister, Mirian Sarbu, to 
join the new Boc government but was turned down by PSD.  PM 
designate Boc tendered a similar offer to a former member of 
a PNL-led cabinet, and now independent, Sebastian Vladescu, 
who accepted the post of Finance Minister without his party's 
endorsement.  The new Boc Cabinet welcomes two new 
politicians with no party affiliation, alongside independent 
Justice Minister Catalin Predoiu who served in the previous 
Boc government.  The full list of ministers is included below: 
 
-     Prime Minister: Emil Boc (PDL) 
-     Deputy Prime Minister: Marko Bela (UDMR) 
-     Minister of Administration and Interior: Vasile Blaga 
(PDL) 
-     Minister of Public Finance: Sebastian Vladescu 
(independent) 
-     Minister of Economy, Trade and Business 
-     Environment: Adriean Videanu (PDL) 
-     Minister of Foreign Affairs: Theodor Baconschi 
(independent) 
-     Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure: Radu 
Berceanu (PDL) 
-     Minister of Environment and Forests: Laszlo Borbely 
(UDMR) 
-     Minister of Regional Development and Tourism: Elena 
Udrea (PDL) 
-     Minister of National Defense: Gabriel Oprea 
(independent) 
-     Minister of Culture and Patrimony: Kelemen Hunor (UDMR) 
-     Minister of Justice: Catalin Predoiu (independent) 
-     Minister of Communications and Informational Society: 
Gabriel Sandu (PDL) 
-     Minister of Labor, Family and Social Protection: Mihai 
Seitan (PDL) 
 
BUCHAREST 00000863  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
-     Minister of Education, Research, Youth and Sports: 
Daniel Funeriu (PDL) 
-     Minister of Health: Cseke Attila (UDMR) 
-     Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development: Mihail 
Dumitru (independent) 
 
¶5.  (SBU) PDL is the senior governing partner, with the prime 
minister and seven other ministers.  These are the old guard: 
six of the eight served in the first PDL-controlled cabinet. 
Prime Minister Boc, Transportation Minister Berceanu, and 
Communications Minister Sandu will occupy positions held 
since December 2008.  Two other PDL ministers, Adriean 
Videanu and Elena Udrea, will now oversee enlarged 
portfolios: Videanu's Economy was combined with Trade and the 
Business Environment while Udrea's Tourism was combined with 
Regional Development.  The former Minister of Regional 
Development, Vasile Blaga, will head Administration and 
Interior, a portfolio he oversaw between 2005 and 2007 and 
held temporarily after the PSD left the cabinet in early 
October.  Catalin Predoiu, the independent, formerly PNL, 
Justice Minister will continue the mandate he assumed in 2008 
 (see ref A for biographies on these ministers). 
 
¶6.  (U) Mihai Seitan, 63, the new Minister of Labor, is a 
long-standing member of the PDL (and its PD predecessor) but 
has never held high party positions and is considered more of 
a technocrat than a politician.  He served for several months 
as state secretary in the Labor Ministry before his 
ministerial nomination, and also formerly worked for the 
World Bank.  Between 2005 and 2007, he was the head of the 
National Authority for Pensions and Social Security and was 
one of the architects of Romania's partially privatized 
pension system, expertise which will be valuable as the 
Government takes up additional pension reforms under the IMF 
program.  In early 2009 Seitan became one of Boc's closest 
advisors.  Daniel Funeriu, 38, comes to the Ministry of 
Education, Youth and Sport after serving in the European 
Parliament in November 2007 and as a vice-chair of the 
special presidential committee for education and research. 
Neither Seitan nor Funeriu hold leadership positions in PDL. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) The ethnic-Hungarian UDMR brings Marko Bela and 
Laszlo Borbely, two long-standing legislators and former 
senior cabinet members.  Bela, 58, is UDMR chair and served 
as Deputy Prime Minister in the PNL-led cabinets of PM Calin 
Popescu-Tariceanu between 2005 and 2007.  Borbely, 54, a UDMR 
executive vice-chair, was a Development Minister in the same 
PNL-led cabinets between 2005 and 2008.  Minister of Culture 
Kelemen Hunor, 42, the UDMR's first-round presidential 
candidate, held a state secretary position in the same 
ministry from 1997 to 2002.  Hunor is seen by some as Marko 
Bela's heir apparent. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Cseke Attila, 32, the surprising UDMR nomination 
for the health portfolio, was a junior official in the 
General Secretariat (the administrative body of the Cabinet) 
between 2005 and 2008.  In 2008, he was elected to the 
Senate, where he served on the legal committee.  As the 
youngest and least-experienced new cabinet member, Attila is 
an odd choice for the Ministry of Health, with no medical 
background and scant administrative experience.  The 
Ministry, and Romania's health system generally, are beset by 
serious problems and are in desperate need of reform, but 
this young UDMR official from Oradea seems poorly positioned 
to take on the many entrenched interests in the health sector. 
 
¶9.  (U) The Ministers of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Defense, 
Justice, Finance, and Agriculture have no party affiliation. 
Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi, a career diplomat, has 
served as the Romanian Ambassador to the Vatican, Lisbon, 
and, since September 2008, to Paris.  In January 2005 he was 
appointed as MFA's state secretary for global affairs, a 
position he held until September 2006, when he was dismissed 
following a reduction of the number of state secretaries.  In 
October 2007, President Basescu brought Baconschi into the 
presidential staff as advisor for domestic policies and civil 
society, before sending him to Paris as Ambassador one year 
later.  Baconschi is widely credited with convincing Pope 
John Paul II to visit Romania in 1999, the late Pope's first 
visit to an Orthodox Christian country.   Under Baconschi's 
ambassadorship, Romania also signed a strategic partnership 
with France.  Baconschi, 46, has a degree in theology and a 
Ph.D. in religious anthropology and comparative history of 
religions from Sorbonne, Paris. 
 
¶10.  (U) Defense Minister Gabriel Oprea, 48, is a retired 
Army general who oversaw administrative, economic and 
national security issues.  He was the PSD's nominee for 
Interior Minister in December 2008, when the ill-fated 
 
BUCHAREST 00000863  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
PDL-PSD coalition was formed.  Oprea's ministerial mandate 
was short-lived; the PSD viewed him as more loyal to Basescu 
than to his own party.  PSD stripped him of political support 
and Oprea resigned from the party in January 2009. Soon 
after, Basescu promoted Oprea to the rank of a four-star 
General, his second promotion after retiring from the 
military in 2000.  In November, he and like-minded 
legislators formed a now-sizable caucus of "independents" who 
proved critical in shaping the new parliamentary majority. 
 
¶11.  (U) Finance Minister Sebastian Vladescu, 51, previously 
of the PNL but now an independent, served as Finance Minister 
in the PNL-led cabinet of 2005-2007 and subsequently as a 
state secretary in the same ministry.  His first nomination 
was based on personal ties to then-PM Tariceanu and was not 
fully endorsed by the PNL.  Moreover, during the battles 
between PNL and President Basescu's PDL, Vladescu often sided 
with Basescu, most notably on the issue of keeping Romanian 
troops in Iraq.  Vladescu is generally viewed favorably by 
the foreign investor community, having served as the 
Tariceanu Government's chief negotiator with Ford for 
privatization of the Craiova auto plant and later as chairman 
of the selection committee which awarded management of 
Romania's Property Fund to Franklin Templeton.  Agriculture 
Minister Mihail Dumitru is probably the least well-known of 
the new ministers because, unlike most of his other 
colleagues, he has never held a public office.  For more than 
a decade (1995-2006), Dumitru was the chief of the 
agricultural department at the European Commission Delegation 
in Bucharest.  After Romania joined the EU in January 2007, 
Dumitru moved to Brussels as negotiator-coordinator of the 
Program for Romania's rural development.  Dumitru is said to 
have a close relationship with former minister Dacian Ciolos, 
who was recently named European Agriculture Commissioner by 
EC President Barroso ) perhaps auguring well for 
coordination between Brussels and Bucharest on assistance, 
especially through better absorption of EU funds, for 
Romania's backward agricultural sector. 
 
¶11. (SBU) COMMENT.  The Parliamentary approval of this new 
Boc Cabinet ends a three-month political crisis that began 
when the previous PDL-PSD coalition collapsed in late 
September (ref B).  The demise of the former coalition and 
the inability to find parliamentary support for a new cabinet 
slowed necessary reforms, limited the government's ability to 
respond to the economic crisis, and delayed the disbursement 
of crucial IMF loan installments.  The two-to-one margin of 
approval indicates that some PNL and PSD members voted to 
confirm the cabinet despite their parties' public stance in 
opposition.  In contrast to the October 13 no-confidence vote 
which brought down the prior Boc Cabinet, this time around 
neither PSD nor PNL leaders threatened their members with 
expulsion as punishment for breaking party discipline.  That 
fact reflects a new reality: as Romania thaws after an 
exhausting election season and two brutal snowstorms, Traian 
Basescu has emerged as the indisputable winner and driving 
force of Romanian politics.  END COMMENT. 
GITENSTEIN