Prime Minister-designate Emil Boc will seek Wednesday a confidence vote for a Cabinet of 15 ministers and a deputy prime minister.
Blaga, a democrat liberal, has previously served as interior minister and was appointed interim interior minister in Boc’s previous Cabinet.
Blaga told lawmakers during his hearing that his main goal as interior minister will be continue the decentralization process in the country’s public administration. He also said a strategic goal is to get Romania into the Schengen area at the end of March.
Romania, which has been without a legitimate government since Boc’s Cabinet collapsed in a no confidence vote in October, relies heavily on an IMF-led bailout loan of nearly EUR20 billion. The country needs to have a government to send Parliament next year’s state budget for international financial institutions to unlock further loan disbursements.