Announcement by Prime Minister Bolojan after Moșteanu's resignation. Who takes over the position of minister on an interim basis
Ilie Bolojan Photo: Inquam Photos / Alexandru Nechez
Prime Minister Bolojan conveyed that he took note of the resignation of the Minister of Defense, Ionuț Moșteanu, and that the portfolio will be taken over by Radu Miruță, the USR Minister of Economy.
Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan announced shortly after Ionuț Moșteanu announced his resignation that he will propose to President Nicușor Dan that the interim position be taken over by Radu Miruță.
“I have taken note of the resignation of Mr. Ionuț Moșteanu from the position of Minister of National Defense and Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of Romania. I thank him for his work in the exercise of his mandate. I will propose to the President of Romania that the interim position be provided by Mr. Radu Miruță, the Minister of Economy, Digitalization, Entrepreneurship and Tourism,” Prime Minister Bolojan said.
USR must come up with a new proposal for a minister with full powers which must then be approved by the president Nicușor Dan. USR leaders are currently in a meeting where the future ministerial proposal will be discussed.
Ionuț Moșteanu announced his resignation
Ionuț Moșteanu's resignation comes five months after he assumed the position of Minister of Defense. He told his party colleagues at a meeting at 12pm that he was to resign, and then made the official announcement in a Facebook post.
Ionuț Moșteanu has been at the head of the Ministry of National Defense since June 23, when the Bolojan Government received the Parliament's vote of confidence. He announced his resignation on Facebook on Friday, following the Libertatea revelations regarding his studies.
Moșteanu says that he discussed both with President Nicușor Dan and Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, as well as with USR leader Dominic Fritz.
He states that he decided to resign because he does not want the mistakes he made “many years ago” to “distract from the difficult mission of those who are now running the country”:
“Today I submitted my resignation from the position of Minister of National Defense. I talked with the president, the prime minister, the president of the party, with some of my colleagues from the USR and I thank them for their support and trust. I do this gesture with commitment and respect for the Romanian Army.
The scandal related to Ionuț Moșteanu's CV
In the first public positions he held, adviser to the Ministry of Transport and member of several CAs, the Athenaeum faculty appears in Ionuț Moșteanu's CV, while now Bioterra appears, writes Libertatea. Atheneum denied having the current Minister of Defense as a student.
Moșteanu held, in 2015-2016, the position of advisor to the minister in the Ministry of Transport and member of the CA of some state companies, positions that required, according to the law at the time, higher education.
The minister then stated in his CV that he studied Management, between 1996 and 2000, at the Athenaeum private university in Bucharest. As can be seen from this CV, the diploma from the Athenaeum was the only university diploma that Moşteanu held during that period.
In a response to Libertatea, the Athenaeum University denied that Moșteanu was a student and that the Management specialization was not active in those years, being authorized only in 2020. The CV in which the Athenaeum University was mentioned was deleted from the Tarom website, in the part that contained the presentation of Moșteanu, as a member of the Board of Directors.
