US Ambassador Should Be Expelled, Dubbed Persona Non Grata – Far-Right Official

"It seems the American ambassador mistook Romania for an American colony on some other continent and he had the nerve, or maybe he doesn’t know where he is, to meddle with Romania’s interior affairs and criticize laws adopted by our parliament,” Funar told a news conference Friday.

 

He called the diplomat, who used to be chairman and director of Advance Auto Parts in the US, "a salesman who knows his spark plugs and car parts.”

 

The far-right senator said he is convinced no foreign ambassador to Washington would dare criticize the Congress for the laws it changes or passes.

 

Funar harshly criticized the lack of reaction from the president of Romania and the foreign affairs minister, and sided with Chamber of Deputies speaker Bogdan Olteanu, whose reaction he considered “prompt and correct”.

 

“Normally, prime minister Tariceanu, upon such a serious interference in romania’s interior affairs, should have assembled the cabinet immediately and decide the expulsion of the American ambassador,  declare him persona non grata, have him peck and board him on a plane to Washington. But they didn’t. They are people without backbones and no dignity,” Funar said, adding Americans know that Romania has puppets for leaders whom they can defy anytime.

 

Taubman on Thursday criticized Romanian lawmakers for amendments brought to the country’s Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code, which he deemed “worrisome for Romanians and friends of Romania.”

 

Chamber speaker Olteanu retorted saying that “in Romania, Romanians make the law.”