Blaga: A Minister from the Social Democratic Party (PSD) has received an ultimatum from Prime-Minister Boc

C.D.

The Minister of Development, Democrat-Liberal Vasile Blaga, announced that Prime Minister Boc issued an ultimatum to a Social-Democrat Minister during Monday"s government meeting, because the Minister in question criticized the Government"s decisions, even though those measures were part of the PSD"s governing program.

Vasile Blaga said: "There are Ministers that the Prime-Minister issued an ultimatum to, during the last meeting of the government coalition. If they don"t like being part of the Government, they should leave, or else quit questioning its decisions.

I"ve heard one of them, while in Gala i, criticize some decisions made by the Government, which is ironic, given that those measures (the lump sum tax) were part of the PSD"s political platform".

Later, the Minister retracted his statement and said that it was only one minister who was warned off about adopting "a more moderate stance", but he would not confirm whether the Minister in question was Constantin Niţă, according to Realitatea TV, according to NewsIn.

Blaga also criticized the chairman of the Social Democrat Party (PSD), Mircea Geoană, for his attacks on the Democratic Liberal Party (PD-L) and asked him to exit the government if he is uncomfortable with the coalition.

The PD-L Minister said: "I want to tell Mr. Geoană that if he doesn"t like being in the coalition, and being in the government, he"s free to leave starting Monday. I"m sure that even if one of his Ministers were to lose their backing, he would not leave the Government"

Blaga was referring to the differences between Mircea Geoană"s attitude towards the Democratic Liberal Party during the electoral campaign and the former"s current behavior.

Out of all the ministers from the Social-Democratic Party (PSD), the one who criticized the introduction of the lump sum tax was the Minister for Small and Medium Enterprises, Constantin Niţă.

Niţă on Friday said that he would suggest the lifting of the minimum lump sum tax, when discussing the draft budget for 2010, but only if economic performance and state budget revenues allowed it.