Romanian Deputy PM Fired After Row Inside Party

Romanian Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu on Monday fired the Deputy PM and Environment Minister Daniel Constantin, co-chair of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, ALDE, a week after new skirmishes surfaced inside the junior ally of the PM's main governing Social Democratic Party, PSD.

Constantin, 38, an engineer, was the former president of the Conservative Party, which merged in June 2015 with the Liberal Reformist Party to form the ALDE.

He is the co-chair of the ALDE together with Senate Speaker and former Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu.

But the two leaders fell out last week after Constantin accused Tariceanu of calling a meeting to decide the date of the party congress without consulting all the members.

Constantin and some other ALDE members left the political bureau meeting on March 19 in protest over Tariceanu's decision.

The latter accused the Deputy PM of being a difficult political partner, saying that during the legislative elections in 2016 Constantin reportedly asked Tariceanu to remove names from party lists and replace them with his allies.

Constantin said he had only wanted to remove people who were under investigation for corruption-related crimes.

ALDE leaders convened on Sunday and withdrew political support for Constantin, which made it impossible for him to remain a minister, according to PSD leader Liviu Dragnea.

"Unfortunately this was a foreseeable ending. I spoke many times with both Daniel Constantin and Calin Popescu Tariceanu. I think that a month ago I told Constantin that he needed to find a way to cohabitate and cooperate with Tariceanu," Dragnea said on Sunday night, after the ALDE vote.

On Monday, he added that it was not a comfortable situation for the ruling...