Who does Prime Minister Ciucă serve / The General’s debt of honour

Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă has to decide: does he continue to govern alongside the UDMR as if nothing had happened or does he part ways with an increasingly noxious political party that is on the verge of political extremism.

Already transformed into an appendage of the FIDESZ and Viktor Orban in Romania, the UDMR is behaving more and more like an instrument to propagate the revisionism promoted by the Hungarian Prime Minister, his anti-European discourse, and the Putinist narrative included in the subsidiary. Almost all the leaders of the UDMR applauded his speech in Băile Tușnad. To this day, none of them have distanced themselves from Orban. On the contrary, they glorified him, excused him, and defended an indefensible

Eleven days have passed since Viktor Orban’s racist statements in Băile Tușnad outraged the entire planet and four days have passed since President Klaus Iohannis requested clarifications from UDMR leaders after they applauded his speech. The leader of the UDMR, Kelemen Hunor, responded defiantly, almost insultingly, to the President, putting up a shield around Viktor Orban.

By their behavior, Deputy Prime Minister Kelemen Hunor and his ministers who accompanied him to Tușnad are violating both the government program (Romania’s pro-European foreign policy) and the oath taken at the Cotroceni. Today they are openly serving the interests of Hungary, not those of Romania.

Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă made some critical allusions to Viktor Orban, but avoided any direct collision with the UDMR. His political interest differs radically from President Iohannis’ foreign agenda, which is centered on his image as a great European leader.

Ciucă needs a stable government to deliver results and political allies if the PSD decides to leave the government at some point. Without the UDMR, with the PSD out of government, Ciucă cannot last as prime minister. If he leaves the Victoria Palace he risks losing the party in the next second. Once he loses the party, his dreams of running for the presidency in 2024 are shattered. See the Cîțu case, who is a nobody in politics today.

Therefore, the general now prefers to avoid a political war, seeking at all costs political peace based on very personal calculations. But the risks to which he is exposing himself are very high. The UDMR has stretched itself to the breaking point and is on the verge of being accused of not behaving loyally towards the Romanian state, but of showing total obedience to Budapest. The first public question marks have been raised by the head of state himself, calling on the leaders of the UDMR to explain who they applauded, whether they are following the Orban line, and a clarifying discussion in the coalition, which is delayed.

Keeping them in the government could cost Nicolae Ciucă dearly, in the absence of necessary clarifications from the UDMR that can no longer be delayed. The loyalty of the Hungarian leaders to the policy of the government led by Prime Minister Ciucă, and their respect for the values assumed by the Romanian state, towards the president of the country, after all, are not minor issues, not something that could be easily overlooked.

The debt of honor of any general is to defend his country, and of a prime minister to serve the interests of his country, before any personal political calculations. If Ciucă postpones the coalition debate waiting for the fire to die down by itself, the tensions already built up between the majority and the minority risk exploding in his face later on. Revisionism, the pro- or anti-European orientation of a ruling party, and tolerance for racist speeches applauded only by Moscow, are crucial issues and all the more reason to send the UDMR into opposition if necessary.

In the absence of the clarifications demanded by the President of the Republic, and through their professed loyalty to Viktor Orban, the leaders of the RMDSZ are slowly turning into an extremist party of the likes of AUR type, but the Hungarian version: anti-Brussels, revisionist, ultra-conservative on issues of family, sexual orientation, traditional values, a political line that is very convenient for Moscow.

It should also be noted the duplicity of the UDMR leaders. Well connected to the resources pumped into Transylvania by the Hungarian government through various economic programs, associations and foundations that they control, the Hungarian political elite also benefit fully from the advantages of government, positions and access to money from Bucharest, whose interests they undermine.

And this political schizophrenia will have to stop. Every euro spent by Budapest in Transylvania will have to be made conditional on a euro put in by the government in Bucharest, in order to avoid in the long term the warning of the editorialist of the conservative German publication Die Welt becoming reality: „Viktor Orban wants a Hungarian guardianship on Romanian territory. Orbán can’t abolish the Treaty of Trianon, but he and his government are doing everything they can to link the territory to the motherland and incorporate it into the great Hungarian empire.”

So who does Prime Minister Ciucă serve? Will the general do his debt of honor or has he already learned the art of compromising compromise in politics? He doesn’t have much time left to provide some answers, which could be decisive for his political career.