PSD President Sorin Grindeanu believes that interim Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan is being kept in office with the help of AUR.

'We have an AUR party that keeps Ilie Bolojan in office. (...) What better proof is there than the fact that when the vote for the Vestea government took place, they walked out of the hall, that action indirectly leading to Ilie Bolojan remaining in office? Directly, they helped Ilie Bolojan remain in office, even without full prerogatives, because it is a dismissed government, with a record number. These are things that, no matter how much you like or dislike one party or another, if you still care about the good running of things in this country, you have to sit down at the table and discuss,' Grindeanu said on DIGI 24 on Monday.

He says that there is 'a swearing contest against the PSD'.

'Ilie Bolojan, if you allow me a comparison, is like a dust merchant. As long as the wind doesn't blow, things are under control. When the wind blows a little, you go bankrupt. That's what Ilie Bolojan is like, who didn't understand the role of a coalition prime minister. Ilie Bolojan comes from a party that came in third place in the elections. (...) I've actually seen the way he and his colleagues view the PSD. That is, you only need the PSD as a reserve of votes to make certain public policies, not as a partner. Now it's a kind of competition between the new-style PNL, a competition between them and the USR, which curses the PSD the most. (...) Traian Basescu invented this thing. The curses against the PSD are not backed up by anything at all. It's effectively a contest of curses against the PSD and, sooner or later, people will understand it,' added Grindeanu.

According to him, the administrative-territorial reform was, in fact, 'a collective dismissal'.

'What happened was a collective dismissal. That's not reform. I'll give you an example and we're taking it to the extreme. We're abolishing all the town halls in this country. We're making a single one, which has an administrative territory of about 80% of Romania's territory, which has a single mayor, a single local council, a single chief architect and so on. Obviously, the expenses are less. The question is whether public services are for citizens as they should be. Last year, Romania borrowed, I hope I'm not mistaken, around 250 billion lei. Do you know how much it will borrow this year, until the end, under the great leadership? Continuing in the same way? 275 billion. About 25 billion more. Reducing the deficit can also be done by another method than the one Ilie Bolojan thought of, by throwing people out. By increasing economic (...), automatically, by keeping public spending at the same level, you reduce the deficit', Grindeanu detailed. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Livia Popescu; EN - writing by: Bogdan Gabaroi)