PMP's Basescu says party much stronger locally than in 2016 parliamentary election

Chairman of the People's Movement Party (PMP), Senator Traian Basescu said on Tuesday that there is no risk for the party to disband, as its local structures are in a far better place now than in 2016, when parliamentary elections were held.

"PMP, which had almost two years to strengthen its structures, is locally much stronger than at the time of the 2016 parliamentary elections. So there is no such risk, no such fear. The issue is that we need to sail into clear water with PMP's merger with the [former] National Union for Romania's Progress (UNPR), and I would greatly appreciate it if the Court of Appeal took a decision before the summer court recess, because last week they decided to refer the case from the Supreme Court to the Court of Appeal. Since this is almost a derisive handling of the merger, perhaps the Bucharest Court of Appeal finds the resources to handle the case as a priority and hand down a ruling before the court recess. That's what we would consider reasonable for the following period," Basescu said after the PMP National Convention meeting.

He added that a reason for the failure of the PMP - UNPR merger was that the courts did not move swiftly enough in handling the case.

"I think one reason why the merger failed is that the courts' not acting with minimum speed. There are more than two years now that the merger case is moved back and forth, deferred, sent from the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court and from there back to the Court of Appeal. The courts fell short of the law requirement that they should give merger lawsuits a speedy trial. It was full-blown strategy to block the merger," said the PMP leader.

Basescu's remarks come as four PMP lawmakers, three of whom from the former UNPR and one initial PMP member, left the party.