Minister of Economy of Romania Varujan Vosganian resigned on the evening of October 7. Vosganian filed his resignation to Prime Minister Victor Ponta after the Romanian Senate denied the Prosecutor General’s request to initiate criminal prosecution against him.

According to ArmenPress, Varujan Vosganian said he resigned in order not to call the government’s activities into question.

Prime Minister Victor Ponta appreciated Vosganian’s step and considered it a political decision. “I appreciate the step that Vosganian took. He didn’t want to hurt the government’s reputation and resigned.” In his turn, President of Romania Trayan Basesku viewed Vosganian’s resignation as a “fair and reasonable” decision.

Varujan Vosganian’s resignation doesn’t mean that a criminal prosecution can be initiated against him because he is still a Senator and still has immunity. New grounds and a new request to the parliament are needed for a criminal prosecution, and this is unlikely.

The issue of instigating criminal cases against Romania’s former and current Ministers of Economy Adrian Videanu and Varujan Vosganian was raised by Romania’s Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism on September 2^nd.

According to the official press release of the DIOCT, Varujan Vosganian and Adrian Videanu are suspected of causing essential harm to Romania’s economy and contributing to a criminal grouping’s economic interests by signing and supporting several decisions and memoranda in the office of minister of economy (V. Vosganian in 2006-08 and A. Videanu in 2008-10).

The DIOCT claims that by the mentioned decisions, natural gas was supplied to Interagro SA Gas Company via RomGaz with very low discounts, even lower than the price set by RomGaz. As a result, Interagro obtained a monopoly in the market and became the special supplier, causing harm to the gas sector of the country’s economy.

Varujan Vosganian sharply denied the allegations fired against him and mentioned that the discounts for that company had been confirmed prior to his term in office and that the application of those discounts referred to the companies of Europe that need more support from the government. Vosganian says his actions are legitimate and finds that it’s illegal to prosecute a minister for adopting decisions reserved for him.

Vosganian also mentioned that after that decision entered into legal force, in 2008, RomGaz earned profit compared to 2007, and this also denies the allegation that the minister caused harm to the government.

With the majority of votes, Romanian Senators also affirmed that the allegation against Vosganian was is groundless on October 7. “I wouldn’t like to talk about speculations, but the target wasn’t Minister Varujan Vosganian in 2008, but Minister Varujan Vosganian in 2013,” the Armenian minister mentioned in his speech at the Senate.

Varujan Vosganian is a well-known public and political figure and writer, and this isn’t political conspiracy isn’t the first one against him. There was a time when President Basesku continued to blame the “abundant” Armenian Minister of Finance and Economy for the government’s failures. Prior to that, in 2006, there was a real campaign against Vosganian to stop him from running for European Commissioner. Vosganian’s political opponents managed to do that because Vosganian was forced to step out, even though all the lies about him were denied.

Later, the presses hinted that the Turks might be behind the conspiracy against Varujan Vosganian since they’re concerned about the reputation and influence of the President of the Union of Armenians of Romania. Turkey made more efforts, especially after the release of Varujan Vosganian’s book “Book of Whispers”, which has already been translated in dozens of languages of the world, has become international acclaimed and has even been presented for a Nobel Prize.

Last year, Ankara overtly expressed its protest to the Romanian government for the public presentations of the novel through its diplomatic channels. There are even rumors that Ankara and Baku put their “strategic partner” Bucharest under pressure to remove Varujan Vosganian from the government. Ponta’s rapid acceptance of the Armenian minister’s resignation goes to show that Bucharest wasn’t very much against such development of events. Varujan Vosganian says he doesn’t regret resigning since ��?Prime Minister Ponta didn’t get along with him that well anyway’. Perhaps Vosganian also did the right thing because the discrepancies between the two heads of the coalition, as well as between these two and their opponent, President Basesku are growing day after day. With the society’s questions that remain unanswered and prior to the 2014 presidential elections, it seems as though Romania is going into a political crisis again, and this is increasing the lack of confidence of European capitals and Washington in Bucharest. It’s not by chance that the Americans have started warning again and that Paris is prohibiting Romania’s entry into the Schengen Zone.

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