BNR Rejects Two Vice-president Nominations Made By Ruling PD-L Party At CEC

05.10.2011 ZF English

The Finance Ministry controlled by PD-L (Democratic Liberal Party) has brought CEC into the undesirable situation of the central bank BNR rejecting two managers nominated by the shareholder.

The central bank rejected the nominations of the Finance Ministry, which represents the state as shareholder of CEC Bank, to appoint Andrei Stamatian, son of the Cluj prefect, as vice-president with financial responsibilities, and of Razvan-Andrei Micu, advisor to finance minister Gheorghe Ialomitianu, as retail vice-president, banking sources said.

The Finance Ministry will now have to reformulate its nominations: Stamatian, 34, will be nominated as vice-president of the state-held bank, but this time in charge of retail, while Micu will be nominated as non-executive member of the Board of Directors.

Contacted by ZF, representatives of the central bank declined to comment on the matter. Nor did the Finance Ministry give comment by press time.

Stamatian and Micu were the major changes that the Finance Ministry controlled by PD-L attempted to make in the team of Radu Ghetea, who has been CEC president since 2007. Ghetea had been appointed at the helm of CEC by liberal minister Varujan Vosganian and has constantly had the BNR's endorsement, which has ensured the renewal of his soon-to-expire mandate. In a less common practice for state institutions, where nominations tend to be political, he has had the freedom to choose his collaborators, so he brought Gheorghe Carabasan, a veteran of the banking system to CEC, whom he promoted in 2008 as first vice-president. He also brought Mihaela Lucica Popa as corporate vicepresident in 2007.

However, politics has constantly sought to infiltrate into the management of the biggest state-held bank in one form or another, but at least as far as the president is concerned, the traditions of making changes every time a different party came to power was broken with.

In CEC's General Meeting of Shareholders on March 31, 2011, PD-L has sought to take advantage of the fact that the members of the executive management team were approaching the end of their mandate to bring two new members on board: Andrei Stamatian, with six years' experience in the banking sector and Andrei-Razvan Micu, with no experience at all in this sector, prompting the BNR to reject his appointment to an executive position.