Fritz calls AUR the 'life insurance' of PSD, predicts party will install Grindeanu as prime minister

Fritz's accusations

USR leader Dominic Fritz delivered a scathing assessment of AUR in a Facebook post on Monday, rejecting the party's anti-establishment image and calling it a "creation of the system". He listed several parliamentary votes in which AUR aligned with PSD, including opposition to eliminating special pensions, an effort to remove Diana Buzoianu from office, and signing a motion against reforms alongside the Social Democrats. Fritz framed this history as proof that AUR has never genuinely fought PSD but instead served as its "life insurance".

“AUR has never been an anti-system party. It is a party on orders. This is the moment of truth. AUR is the creation of the system, manufactured to capture and control people's anger against PSD — the real, justified anger against the party that ruled over Romania and systematically robbed it of hope and prosperity after the Revolution.”

The USR president then turned to the current government-formation process. He argued that AUR has now received the mission to "save PSD itself" by handing the premiership to Sorin Grindeanu, the Social Democrat leader whom Fritz reminded voters was the author of the controversial emergency ordinance OUG 13, which sparked mass protests in 2017. "Hundreds of thousands of people, including AUR voters, took to the streets back then," Fritz wrote.

A prolonged political crisis

Romania has been without a fully empowered government since late April. On 20 April, PSD withdrew political support from PNL prime minister Ilie Bolojan. Three days later, PSD ministers resigned from the cabinet. A joint no-confidence motion tabled by PSD and AUR passed on 5 May with 281 votes, toppling the Bolojan government, the same tally that had removed Florin Cîțu in October 2021. PNL subsequently announced it was moving into opposition, while president Nicușor Dan promised a new government "in a reasonable time".

Formal consultations at Cotroceni Palace with PSD, PNL, USR, UDMR and AUR began only on 18 May and concluded on 4 June, when the president nominated Eugen Tomac as prime minister. Under the constitution, Tomac had ten days to present a governing programme and cabinet list to Parliament, but progress has stalled.

AUR's uncertain position

Against this backdrop, Fritz's intervention carries weight because of signals emerging from AUR itself. Senator Petrișor Peiu, the party's group leader in the upper house, told Digi24 on Sunday that a cabinet led by Grindeanu might secure the necessary votes in Parliament. He predicted "a fragile majority" and said many parliamentary actors are "with their nerves on the ground, all looking for a way out of this situation". However, Peiu insisted that AUR would not support a Grindeanu government because the PSD leader "has excluded us from governance".

“It will be a fragile majority that will try to prop its feet on slippery, muddy ground. It will succeed, because the political class in parliament is pretty much at the end of its tether. Everyone is looking for a way out.”

Fritz dismissed such statements as theatre. He predicted that AUR, having been called back "to the barracks" in the name of "the national interest", would ultimately deliver the votes Grindeanu needs. He pointed to internal turmoil inside AUR as further evidence, referencing a recent public clash between former party candidate Anca Alexandrescu and her "own guru", Călin Georgescu.

What comes next

The president has yet to designate a new prime minister after the stalled Tomac nomination. If Grindeanu is formally tapped, he would need to assemble a cabinet and survive an investiture vote in a fractured legislature. With no party holding a clear majority and trust eroded by the two-month impasse, the outcome remains uncertain. Fritz's framing, whether accurate or not, will shape the narrative as Romania's political class searches for a durable government.