Calin Popescu Tariceanu - 2004-2008
Calin Constantin Anton Popescu-Tariceanu is a Romanian politician and businessman, who in 2004-2008 served as Prime Minister of Romania. Former leader of PNL, Tariceanu left the party and set up another, the Liberal Reform Party. Calin Constantin Anton Popescu-Tariceanu, a PNL stalwart and leading party figure since the early 1990s is respected businessman. Within the party, Tariceanu was widely viewed as a conciliatory force, managing to avoid being too closely identified with any of the party,s factions.
Born January 14, 1952, in Bucharest, now with the fifth marriage. A respected and accessible interlocutor, Tariceanu speaks excellent English. Among the passions of Tariceanu are definitely cars and women. With his current wife he has a boy, and from the previous four he has two other children. Tariceanu's mother is of Greek origin, her father being half Romanian and half Greek, and Greek mother.
Executive Secretary of the National Liberal Party, 1990-1992, he was a member of the Constituent Assembly (Parliament) as Deputy from Arad, between 1990 and 1992. He was Deputy PNL between 2000 and 2004, when he is vice-president of the National Liberal Party (December 2000 - February 2004) and vice-president of the Committee on Budget, Finance and Insurance in the Chamber of Deputies.
Tariceanu was Interim President of the National Liberal Party (PNL), from 2 October 2004 to February 2005. He had been acting PNL President -- and co-leader of the PNL-PD Alliance -- since Theodore Stolojan's unexpected resignation from the presidential campaign and PNL leadership 02 October 2004 due to illness. Tariceanu was Minister of Commerce and Industry from 1996 to 1997. His political adversaries cried foul during his ministerial tenure when one of his companies struck a deal with the national telecommunications company, RomTeleCom.
His polished, urbane style coupled with a certain gravitas made him a logical pick for PNL-PD Alliance spokesman in 2003. Although he lacked the national name recognition of the center-left Social Democratic Party (PSD) PM designee FM Mircea Geoana, Tariceanu's calm and collected style distinguishes him in a political atmosphere often characterized by hyperbole and florid rhetoric. He is a good foil for rough-hewn President-elect Basescu.
One criticism occasionally aimed at Tariceanu by PNL insiders is that his relatively laid back style is perhaps a smidgen too relaxed for the hurly-burly of partisan politics; during the campaign, for example, Tariceanu reportedly insisted on regular rest days. Tariceanu also is proud of his success as a "self made man," having amassed a personal fortune through holding an exclusive franchise for Citroen sales in Romania.
After the presidential election won by Traian Basescu, the latter appointed Popescu-Tariceanu as prime minister to form a government and get the majority in Parliament. On 28 December 2004, the government formed by Calin Popescu-Tariceanu was invested by Parliament, and Tariceanu became the new prime minister of Romania.
Calin Popescu-Tariceanu announced in July 2005 that he would resign to force early parliamentary elections, as President Traian Basescu wanted since his victory in the 2004 elections. The resignation was also caused by the rejection by Constitutional Court of a package of laws for justice reform. After meeting with European commissioners in Brussels, Prime Minister Tariceanu changed his mind. He argued his decision that Romania should be governed, given the catastrophic floods that hit the country in the summer of 2005. The floods killed 66 people, leaving thousands of homeless villagers.
Since then, the relations between Prime Minister Tariceanu and President Basescu worsened. In April 2006, Traian Basescu said he regretted that he had appointed Prime Minister Tariceanu and accused him of partnering with economic interest groups. Another dispute with President Basescu was generated by Tariceanu's official announcement on June 29, 2006 that the National Liberal Party supports the withdrawal of Romanian troops from conflict zones where they are not under the mandate of the UN, NATO or the European Union. The president expressed his strong opposition to the withdrawal of the Romanian troops from Iraq.
In February 2006, the first censure motion in the history of the Tariceanu Government, filed by PSD and PRM with the health care reform package, was rejected by Parliament's plenary by 246 votes against and 214 votes.
The Government of Calin Popescu-Tariceanu also passed the motion of censure voted by Parliament on October 3, 2007, a motion initiated by the Social Democratic Party. Although 220 MPs voted in favor of the motion and only 152 voted against it, the motion needed 232 votes to get the fall of the government. Another motion of censure was rejected by Parliament in June 2008. The document initiated by PDL, entitled "The Tariceanu Government must Leave!", was not adopted by Parliament, after the senators and deputies of PSD and PRM present did not vote.
For the first time, in November 2008 Romanian general elections were be fought under the principle of absolute majority. There will be no run-off. Also for the first time, parliamentary and presidential elections did not coincide with one another, since recent changes to the constitution increased the length of the president’s mandate from four to five years. The Social Democrats (PSD) won the elections with 36.2% of the vote, followed by the right-wing Liberal Democrats (PDL) close to President Traian Basescu with 30.5%. The National Liberals (PNL) of current Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu received 20.2% of the vote, while the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) obtained nearly 7%.
On March 20, 2009, Crin Antonescu was elected president of the PNL, winning the battle with the former head of the party and the government, Calin Popescu-Tariceanu. In February 2014, the alliance between PSD and PNL (Social Liberal Union) broke down, and Tariceanu was deeply dissatisfied with the decision taken by the Liberals' leadership. As a result, the former prime minister decided to resign from the PNL after he publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with the decision of the Party's Permanent Delegation to leave the USL.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
