New government must prove itself quickly

Romania has a new government. The parliament voted in the cabinet of the left-liberal alliance, the USL, on Monday with 284 out of a total of 460 votes. But despite this show of support the government led by Prime Minister Victor Ponta faces major challenges, the news portal Ziare warns: "Decisive for the new USL alliance in the parliamentary elections in autumn will be how the economy is doing. So far Ponta has not produced any solutions as to how he intends to strike a balance between his promise to return to the old salaries for civil servants, the demands of his hungry clientele and the conditions for international loans. … The judiciary, too, will be a hard test for the new cabinet: because Titus Corlăţean, who is not at all happy about his new post as justice minister, is a prisoner. On the one hand there are the European requirements for joining the Schengen zone and on the other the social democratic MPs want to reintroduce full immunity to ensure they can't be prosecuted. … In such circumstances the next six months [until the parliamentary elections] could prove to be terribly long for the new prime minister. For he must show that he's not completely out of his depth here."

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