Dissident Liberal meets PM in talks attempt

Dissident Liberal Theodor Stolojan announced on Monday evening that he would meet PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu, the president of the National Liberal Party-PNL, for talks aimed at clearing up the conflicting positions of the current PNL leadership and a movement led by Stolojan for the reform of the political group.

The meeting comes at a moment of extreme tension between Stolojan’s group of dissidents, many of them excluded from PNL, and Tariceanu’s team, a tension that risks to undermine the electoral chances of the Liberals who now form an unstable coalition government with the Democrats.

Stolojan had said earlier yesterday that he was still thinking of whether to accept the meeting. He qas quoted by the media as suggesting that he would not accept a position within the PNL leadership as a simple means to defuse the crisis, but would push for his group’s plans to reform the party.