Parliament validates Dan Nica as Interior minister

The Romanian Parliament validated Dan Nica, a member of the Social Democrats (PSD), as the new Interior minister of the country on Wednesday. Members of the two chambers of the Parliament convened in a joint session on Wednesday to vote Nica in office. „My objective is to clean the streets of thieves”, Nica said after the vote.

He said the budget planned for the Interior Ministry for 2009 was more than enough. His predecessor, Liviu Dragnea, resigned recently arguing that funds allocated for the Ministry from the state budget were insufficient for it to run its activities properly.

The parliamentary session was tense and was interrupted for less than half an hour at the request of the PSD group. Tensions appeared when House speaker Roberta Anastase announced former PSD member Gabriel Oprea was the Democratic Liberal Party (PD-L) proposal to head the parliamentary commission overseeing the activities of the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI). The session restarted when PD-L announced it dropped Oprea’s nomination and proposed Ioan Balan for the position.