Hearings of Citu Cabinet choices enter last day in Parliament

The last hearings by the specialist committees of Parliament of the ministers picked to be part of the Citu Government are scheduled for today. According to the schedule approved by the Standing Bureaus in a joint sitting, the picks to be heard today are Bogdan Aurescu for foreign minister; Marcel Bolos for minister of European funds; Virgil Popescu for minister of economy, energy and the business environment, and Marcel Vela for interior minister. On Wednesday, the second day of hearings, six ministers picked for the Citu Cabinet answered questions from MPs. Lucian Bode for minister of transport, infrastructure and communications, and Ionut Stroe for minister of youth and sports received positive opinions. Negative opinions were received by Bogdan Gheorghiu for minister of culture; Victor Costache for health minister; Monica Anisie for education and research minister; and Violeta Alexandru for minister of labour and social security. Hearings started on Tuesday, and winning a positive opinion from the relevant specialist committees were Nicolae Ciuca for defence minister; Costel Alexe for minister of the environment, water and forestry, and Adrian Oros for minister of agriculture and rural development. Getting negative opinions were Lucian Heius for finance minister; Catalin Predoiu for justice minister, and Ion Stefan for minister of public works, development and administration. *** According to the regulations of the joint sessions of Parliament, each candidate for the position of minister is heard in a joint meeting by the standing committees of the two Chambers whose activity object corresponds to the area of competence of the future minister. After the hearings, the committees will draw up a joint, reasoned advisory opinion. Parliament will convene in a plenary sitting to put the new cabinet up for a vote at a date to be set at the beginning of next week. Parliament expresses its confidence in the government by a majority vote of the lawmakers. AGERPRES (RO - author: Georgiana Tanasescu, editor: Florin Marin;EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Rodica State)