DAHR pleads for 16 development regions

The leaders of the Democrat Alliance of Hungarians in Romania are discussing PDL’s proposal to form eight counties, at Târgu Mureş.

The debate follows heated discussions in the coalition regarding the administrative-teritorial reorganization.

On Monday the DAHR should offer coalition partners a definitive opinion, but the fact that most people are reluctant has made PDL leaders and President Traian Băsescu state that they might give this idea up.

Several DAHR leaders are pleading for 16 development regions, with no administrative functions, and would like to go to the people before taking a decision.

It is important that we keep counties, but development regions are also important, because we need to attract as much European money as possible, DAHR representatives said.

DAHR leaders’ opinion

Some counties already have common projects, Harghita leader, Borbély Csaba says. He would like Covasna and Mureş to form a single development region.

‘We do not and will not have any projects with Braşov, Alba or Sibiu counties, except for one, because these counties are interested in building the Transilvania Sud Motorway’.

‘We are interested in building the Transilvania Nord Motorway and the International Airport in Târgu- Mureş, they are interested in the Sibiu International Airport. We have nothing in common’, Borbély Csaba said.

Mureş representative Kelemen Attila sees this county with Harghita and Covasna.

Other solutions would not benefit the county, DAHR deputy says.

Sălaj representative is also against the proposal and rejects PDL’s project.

Seres Dénes says that the people there do not want to be part of any region in which their word does not matter.

‘Development regions, not administrative ones. We have said that development regions need to be reorganized in smaller units, but without any administrative attributions’.

‘We are closest to Satu Mare and Bihor. We have common economic interests, and we are linked culturally’, Seres Dénes says.

Alba DAHR leader, Kovács Krisztián, says that at the moment the 41-county system is preferred, because, to his mind, reorganization requires a political consensus. Kovács Krisztián believes that the version proposed by Traian Băsescu and PDL is not doable.

‘The 8+2 one is a mutant. For now, we stick to 16’, Kovács Krisztián says.

The DAHR does not easily give up and, for the moment, rejects the reorganization suggestions of their governing partners.

On Thursday, the General Secretary of PDL, Ioan Oltean, said that if the DAHR rejects the 8-county offer plus Harghita and Covasna, liberal-democrats might forget their plans to dissolve the counties.

Translated by: Gabriela Lungu

MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University