Designated Prime Minister Siegfried Mureșan said on Monday that former presidential candidate Călin Georgescu is ‘pro-Russian’, anti-European and does not deserve people’s support, Agerpres reports.
He said he had no details about why Georgescu had been detained by DIICOT on Monday, but added that breaking the law must be punished.
‘I have no details; I have also read the news. (…) If someone has done something wrong, if someone has broken the law, they should be punished in accordance with the law and as quickly as possible. But don’t ask me to say that he is a public figure whom we should pity. He is a pro-Russian, anti-European figure who wants disorder in Romania, not order. He is a political figure I would stay away from and who I believe does not deserve people’s support. The fewer people he manages to fool, the better for Romania,’ he told RFI România.
According to him, the Romanians who supported Călin Georgescu in the past did so because of the ‘confusion’ in society and poor governance.
‘I think some may be pro-Russian, but they are certainly not in the majority. Some may be anti-European, but I don’t think they are in the majority either, because people in Romania understand how much good the European Union has done us. People in Romania understand how we have developed through European funds, European rules, European values and European laws in recent years. I think people supported Călin Georgescu at one point because of the confusion in society and poor governance in the past,’ he added.
Mureșan said that Romanians were subsequently ‘misinformed’ and ‘deliberately’ manipulated, including on social media. In this regard, he stressed the importance of education and the responsible use of these platforms.
‘Social media platforms are private companies; they are technology giants with a single objective: to make as much profit as possible. The more time we spend on these social media platforms, the greater their profit, because they sell more advertising and take in more money. Therefore, by spending time on social media, we are not doing ourselves any good; we are not informing ourselves, as we believe. We are generating profit for those social media platforms. That is why I intend to spend as little time as possible on social media and, certainly, you have nothing to gain from following Călin Georgescu on TikTok,’ he said.
Former presidential candidate Călin Georgescu was detained in traffic on Monday and taken home, where investigators are conducting searches in a fraud case, judicial sources told AGERPRES.
According to the sources, Georgescu was detained in traffic while he was heading to a swimming pool and taken to his home in Mogoșoaia to be present during the searches.
Businessman Ionel Rusen was also detained in the case. He was involved in raising funds for Călin Georgescu’s campaign in the presidential election.
