Romanian President announces resignation: I'm leaving, we're a laughing stock for the whole world

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis announced his resignation today, February 10. He announced that he would officially resign in two days.

Tomorrow, the Romanian Parliament will meet to discuss the request to suspend the powers of the head of state, such a decision was made by the Joint Permanent Bureau of the Chamber of Deputies and The Senate.

"In order to save Romania and Romanian citizens from this crisis, from this negative development of events, I am resigning as President of Romania. I will leave my post the day after tomorrow, on February 12," Klaus Iohannis said at a press conference at the Cotroceni Palace.

The Chairman of the Senate, Ilie Bolozhan, explained after the meeting of the Joint Bureaus that the plenum would decide whether to send the opposition's petition for the removal of Yohanis to The Constitutional Court or it will be decided to create an investigative commission to analyze the application for removal.

"We will most likely offer to transfer it to The Constitutional Court to get his point of view," Bolozhan added.

Earlier, the opposition for the third time made a proposal to suspend the powers of the president at the plenary session of the parliament. Prior to that, the ruling parties had already blocked this initiative twice, citing technical and procedural reasons. Now signatures have been collected, and according to the regulations, deputies are required to begin the process of removal from office.

The current Romanian president called the initiated procedure of his removal a "useless step", since in any case, in a few months he will leave his post after new elections. According to him, Romania will enter a crisis due to the launch of a referendum on the resignation of the head of state. Johannes is sure that if this happens, society will be divided inside the country. The external consequences will also be long-term and very negative.

"Absolutely no one will understand the meaning of such an approach when the incumbent president leaves anyway. We will actually become the laughing stock of the whole world. In order to protect Romania and Romanian citizens from this crisis, from this unnecessary and negative development of events, I am resigning as President of Romania. God bless Romania!" concluded Klaus Yohanis.

Recall that Yohanis' resignation statement was made against the background of opposition protests, which on Monday again brought people to the streets of Bucharest, demanding recognition of the results of the first round of the presidential elections canceled by the Constitutional Court (held in the fall of 2024), in which their candidate Calin Georgescu was in the lead. New elections are to be held in May this year, until which time Yohanis would continue to perform his duties.

"The usurper has finally disappeared. Klaus Iohannis has just resigned! The worst and ugliest president in the history of Romania. If he had not resigned, the parliament would have removed him from office and dismissed him. "The second round of elections must be resumed urgently," one of the leaders of the protesters, the head of the far—right AUR party (Alliance for the Unification of Romanians party) wrote on the X network George Simion.