Cătălin Drula, USR president
I celebrated Europe Day with my colleagues from USR and the United Right alliance in Timisoara, the city that was the European Cultural Capital last year. Timisoara is today a model of how a local community can develop when it has a modern, European administration: new trams and buses, modernized schools, renovated hospitals, investments of 635 million lei in 2023 alone.
We saw the same thing in Braşov, where Allen Coliban is transforming the city into the green capital of Romania; in Bacău, where Lucian Viziteu started the largest program to modernize the transport infrastructure; in Bucharest, where Nicusor Dan, Clotilde Armand and Radu Mihaiu are modernizing the capital of the country after many years it was captive to the corrupt PSD administration.
I know that, after three years of PSD-PNL government, it seems that nothing good can happen in Romania. I understand the disappointment of many people who are fed up with price increases, corruption and lies. But Romania can be governed in a different way.
When he was in power, USR created the largest modernization plan for Romania, the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). It is about 28 billion euros of European money for the renovation of 25 hospitals, the digitization of schools, investments in transport infrastructure and reforms necessary for the modernization of the country.
In just 8 months as Minister of Transport in 2021, I started work on over 230 kilometers of highways and 1,000 kilometers of express roads. We secured European funding for the Moldova Motorway and for the modernization of 1,300 km of railways.
And, yes, I went in with a crowbar on the subway mafia and kicked out of the office the political clans subscribed to contracts with the state.
Romania can be governed better than Marcel Ciolacu and Klaus Iohannis do today. PSD and PNL steal from the state’s money, leave behind a huge debt, as if the day of reckoning will never come, as if there is no alternative.
The alternative exists. This year, we created the United Right alliance to offer an honest and solid alternative to all those who are tired of the PSD-PNL thief.
Together we can stop the waste of public money and fix the injustice of special pensions. Last year alone, PSD and PNL increased special pensions by one billion lei. The PNL president, former prime minister Ciucă, receives a special pension 10 times higher than the pension of a regular pensioner.
We must stop the waste of public money, balance the country’s budget and cancel the tax increases made by PSD and PNL. We need to leave more money in the hands of honest working people and entrepreneurs who create goods and services here in Romania.
And when we return to government, we will ensure that every cent of the 28 billion euros from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan will be brought into the country and spent on hospitals, schools and highways. PNRR is Romania’s country plan. It is our chance to modernize Romania and catch up with the Western states. PNRR will be the governing program of the United Right alliance.
And in Brussels, our colleagues from the European Parliament will support that Romanians from the Diaspora and their children learn Romanian in any school in Europe. And Romanian patients have access to treatment anywhere in the European Union. It is time for Romania to take care of all Romanians, regardless of whether they live in the country or beyond the borders, because Romania is wherever there are Romanians.
I was also out of the country a long time ago. I did my education in Canada. I worked in the United States and in Europe. I was away from my family. Now, all I want more is that my boys don’t leave and make a future for themselves here, in Romania.
I will not let the PSD and PNL people steal this future from us. The elections on June 9 are our chance to change the direction we are in today. Romania can be governed differently. Romania deserves to be a modern, European country and I believe that together we can build this future.
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