Why Defense Minister Vasile Dincu is hard to oust from the Government

Since taking office, Minister Vasile Dincu has suffered from the weariness of a politician who hides his incompetence and inadequacy in a sea of „crafted” words, to quote him. His latest statements about negotiations with the Russians as a solution to the war in Ukraine have awakene even President Klaus Iohannis out of his slumber. The head of state publicly asked him to read the press some more, a humiliating thing for a defence minister from a NATO country neighbouring Ukraine.

Such a public rebuke from the head of state, who is also the head of the army, can only be followed by resignation. Vasile Dîncu’s fate seemed sealed after his party boss, Marcel Ciolacu, also criticised his verbal incontinence. „When you’re Defence Minister, you don’t have any beliefs, you have a policy of the Romanian state. I repeat, the president has powers. With the prime minister we have to have a discussion in coalition. It is not the case to have personal opinions and beliefs in a time of conflict,” Ciolacu said in an interview with Evenimentul Zilei.

But Vasile Dîncu would not stop talking. Here he is, on Thursday, beaming on TVR Info. He reproached the two for falling like fools into a „USRrist trap” and that they were asked some „crafty” questions. He even returned the reproach, this time sending President Iohannis to the „press review”, arguing that President Macron and other NATO leaders have also talked about the negotiations with the Russians. When you get to publicly lecture your immediate bosses, to whom you explain in a defiant manner that they don’t understand much about the war with Ukraine, all you have to do is start packing.

As a result, many saw Vasile Dincu return from the NATO ministerial in Brussels with his resignation already signed on the plane on his way to Bucharest. The talkative minister not only didn’t resign, but on Monday morning he sprinted to the Victoria Palace first thing in the morning. An hour later, the government announced through its spokesman that the talks were about „the NATO defence ministers’ meeting in Brussels and calibrating public communication at the level of the Ministry of Defence in a government context”.

„Calibrating public communication” is a euphemism, a mild wording to describe the avalanche of nonsense poured into the public space by the defence minister since the start of the war in Ukraine. It is unclear whether General Ciucă temporarily saved the defense minister from dismissal in order not to satisfy the opposition, which is expecting Dincu in Parliament today, or avoided the precedent of a resignation in order not to open the issue of a wider reshuffle.

Less likely is that the head of government gave Vasile Dîncu time to prepare an honourable exit. Rather, in the name of „political stability”, Prime Minister Ciucă avoided a crisis in the coalition. The PSD would not have been willing to admit that only some of its ministers should be changed and would have demanded that a head or two fall from the Liberals as well. Ciucă would have seen himself in a position to choose who to kick out of the government among his own: Virgil Popescu, Lucian Bode, someone else? This is where things get complicated. Each of those mentioned has negotiated a higher support, precisely because their names appear on the radar whenever there is talk of reshuffle.

Let’s say that the PES and the Liberals would have finally agreed on who to kick out of their party. But then the natural question would be asked: who leaves from the UDMR? Are theirs all good, only the liberals and the socialists did stupid things? In short, once Pandora’s box was opened, Prime Minister Ciucă would quickly find himself in the middle of a coalition scandal, the last thing he wants. A scandal means political instability, and a crisis in the coalition is never sure how it ends. If Prime Minister Ciucă were to pull at the thread of the broken government now, he risks tearing half the fabric apart.

All Prime Minister Ciucă is doing now is postponing an inevitable settlement. Nearly half of his government’s ministers have accumulated liabilities during their term of office and hang like a rock from the government’s image: Lucian Bode (BMW, Schengen), Cătălin Predoiu (Justice Laws), Virgul Popescu (constantly attacked by the PSD over energy bills), Vasile Dîncu ( his outing and gaffes), Alexandru Rafila (blinded by the war with Raed Arafat), Kelemen Hunor (Tușnad), Tanczos Barna and Eduard Novak (both with long histories of errors). Finally, at the top of the list add Nicolae Ciucă, haunted by the plagiarism scandal and the directing of his court case to a PNL-friendly judge.

Can this government drag on for another six months, until May, when the government rotation is due to take place? If more protests start in the country due to the rising cost of living (high household bills, galloping inflation), Prime Minister Ciucă can no longer avoid the „blood age” in the coalition. Then, who will pay for the eventual and increasingly predictable failure of Romania’s Schengen accession? President Klaus Iohannis will by no means assume anything but eventual success. If Romania fails Schengen, who will pay politically: just a few ministers or the whole government headed by the prime minister?