Prime Minister-designate Siegfried Muresan said he would ask Parliament's leadership for the hearings of the proposed ministers to last at least 60 minutes.

Muresan told RFI Romania on Monday that he had 'never' liked 'rush-through' hearings. He underscored that MPs must have the opportunity for a 'serious dialogue' with the candidates and be able to ask them questions. According to him, ministers should not be 'afraid' of a 60-minute question-and-answer session.

'My estimate is that by the end of this week I will submit the government programme and the Cabinet of ministers to the Romanian Parliament and that at the beginning of next week we will have the hearings in Parliament. I will ask Parliament, I will ask the presidents of the two chambers for each minister's hearing to last at least 60 minutes. I want the ministers' hearings to be serious and for ministers to have the chance to show MPs that they are prepared to take on these portfolios,' Muresan said.

The Prime Minister-designate said he had already spoken with representatives of the three parties supporting him - the National Liberal Party (PNL), the Save Romania Union (USR) and the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR) - and that he wanted the government formation process to be 'extremely transparent.'

The three parties are to draw up the government programme, updating the ideas already outlined in the spring.

'When the three parties proposed the appointment, the priorities were completing the PNRR [National Recovery and Resilience Plan] and finalising the European SAFE [Security Action for Europe] defence programme. Currently, the PNRR is closed, but the dialogue with the European Commission still needs to be finalised, while SAFE has entered the implementation stage. Thus, most likely tomorrow, we will present the main elements of the government programme in the first part of this week,' he announced.

Siegfried Muresan will first hold talks with the parties supporting him, followed by talks with MPs from other parliamentary groups. He also said the government programme would be 'reform-oriented, pro-European, responsible, but ambitious.'

'The difference between me and the first two prime ministers-designate is that I start with the explicit and transparent support of three parties, unlike the first candidate, who came from an extra-parliamentary party, and the second, who had been nominated against the wishes of his own party,' he said. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Irinela Visan; EN - writing by: Rodica State)