| ROMANIA HAS A NEW FOREIGN MINISTER 15/04/2008 |
| (2008-04-15) |
| Last updated: 2008-04-16 17:09 EET |
Cioroianu resigned last week, after he came under fire for the Foreign Ministry's mismanagement of the case of Romanian citizen Daniel Crulic, who died in a hospital in Poland. Crulic died in January after he had gone on hunger strike in prison, in protest against his arrest for a theft he claimed he had not perpetrated.
The new Foreign Minister headed the Romanian mission to NATO and, until Monday, he was the resident representative of Romania at the European Union. Here is Lazar Comanescu talking about his diplomatic background:
“I've had this opportunity to be directly involved in the achievement of what I would call one of the most important objectives that Romania has pursued in its history, particularly in its contemporary history.”
President Traian Basescu's signature of the presidential decree appointing Lazar Comanescu as Foreign Minister was followed by reactions coming from political parties. Their leaders unanimously acknowledged Comanescu's expertise in European affairs. Teodor Melescanu, vice-president of the National Liberal Party (in the governing coalition alongside the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, the UDMR) believes that the nomination of Lazar Comanescu was the responsibility of Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu. The UDMR leader, Marko Bela, underscored Lazar Comanescu's experience in diplomacy, in which he worked in a vital area for Romania, namely the EU accession.
Senior vice-president of the opposition Democratic-Liberal Party, Theodor Stolojan regards it as an excellent choice, as Comanescu is a professional of the Romanian diplomacy. The right man for the job, believes Titus Corlatean, secretary general of the opposition Social Democratic Party. But he does note that the Liberal Party is experiencing a shortage of human resources, judging by its choice of a technician, so to say, rather than a politician.
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2025-04-03
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