Category Archives: Romania

Romania

Romania – President of Senate voted out of office

In Romania, MediaFax is reporting that the President of the Senate, Mircea Geoană, has been removed from office.

He was the leader of the opposition Partidul Social Democrat (PSD, Social Democratic Party) from April 2005-February 2010. He has been embroiled in a cash-for-patronage scandal since the last presidential election.

The PSD has been wanting him to step down as President of the Senate, but he refused. On Tuesday the party’s National Executive Council voted by 50 to 5 to expel Geoană from the party. Yesterday, he was removed from the presidency of the Senate by 112 votes to 2 with five abstentions.

At the second round of the December 2009 presidential election, Geoană won 49.66% of the vote, narrowly losing to the incumbent president Traian Băsescu.

Romania – Anti-government vote fails

In Romania, the National News Agency is reporting that the government has survived a de facto motion of no-confidence. It was tabled in the Senate in protest against the government’s changes to a heating subsidy.

In the vote, 66 Senators supported the anti-government motion and only 62 voted in favour of the government. There was one abstention. However, technically, the motion failed because it required 69 votes, or an absolute majority of the 137 seats there.

It was only a de facto no-confidence motion because Art. 113 (1) of the Constitution outlines the conditions of a true no-confidence vote. It states: “The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate may, in joint session, withdraw confidence granted to the Government, by carrying a motion of censure by a majority vote of the Deputies and Senators.” In fact, the vote in the Senate was on a so-called “single motion” that is governed by Art. 157 (1) of the Senate’s parliamentary regulations. So, the government would not have fallen even if an absolute majority had voted against the government.

The opposition was quick to make it clear that even though the vote failed, the government was in a minority. This may make it more difficult for legislation to be passed in the future.

Romania – President presents constitutional amendments

The process of constitutional revision in Romania is coming to a head. It began with the creation in 2008 of a Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Political and Constitutional Regime in Romania. They have a website in Romanian here.

After a very long process, President Traian Băsescu presented the draft bill of the proposed reforms on 31 May. The text is available in Romanian here. It will go to the Legislative Council, which will offer legal advice. It will then go to the Constitutional Council. Finally, it will go to parliament.

Art. 151 of the Constitution states:

(1) The draft or proposal of revision must be adopted by the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, by a majority of at least two thirds of the members of each Chamber.
(2) If no agreement can be reached by a mediation procedure, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate shall decide thereupon, in joint session, by the vote of at least three quarters of the number of Deputies and Senators.
(3) The revision shall be final after approval by a referendum held within thirty days at the most from the date of passing the draft or proposal of revision.

This procedure is significant because the main proposal in the bill is the creation of a unicameral legislature with a maximum of 300 deputies. So, will the current set of deputies and, more to the point, senators approve a constitution that is likely to end their parliamentary mandate?

A further amendment is the provision that the prime minister will be able to dismiss a minister but only after prior agreement with the president.

Romania – Vetoed veto vetoed

Let me see if I can get this one right.

In November, the opposition in Romania passed bills that lowered VAT on basic foods to 5% and exempted income tax on pensions of the lower-paid. As reported in a previous post, there were claims that parliament approved the bills in error and President Basescu vetoed the bills, or, technically, asked parliament to reconsider the bill (Art. 77).

Last week, Mediafax reports that the Romanian Senate opposed the president’s re-examination request by 54 votes to 49. In other words, the president’s veto was vetoed and the bills were approved. On Monday, it appears as if another vote on the veto was taken and this time it passed by 62 votes to 55.

So, the Senate’s veto of the president’s veto has been vetoed.

Romania – No-confidence motion fails

Another Romanian parliamentary session, another no-confidence vote.

This time the opposition lodged a motion of censure against the government’s labour code. The Romanian News Agency reports that the motion received 212 votes. To succeed, 236 would have been required. As usual, the governing parties did not vote.

One of the deputies of the governing PDL party did vote for the censure motion and he will be expelled from the party.

Romania – No-confidence motion receives 0 votes

This is not a re-post! On 23 December the Romanian government survived its fourth no-confidence motion of the year and its second in a week. This time, the government made the so-called Unitary Wage Law a matter of confidence. Therefore, the bill would automatically become law unless a motion of no-confidence was lodged and successfully passed.

The opposition did lodge a motion of no-confidence. However, when it came to the vote, the opposition left the chamber. This meant that 0 votes were cast in favour of the motion. Given an absolute majority is required for the motion to be passed, there is no need for the government to vote against the bill. Therefore, the motion received 0 votes for and 0 votes against! This is surely a first. Anyway, the motion failed and the government’s bill passed.

The vote was marred by a protest from a public sector worker. He jumped from the public gallery onto the floor of the Chamber. Be warned, the footage is quite disturbing. Thankfully, he survived and had only relatively minor injuries.

Romania – Government survives no-confidence motion

Another day, another no-confidence vote in Romania. This time the government made the so-called 2011 Payroll Law a matter of confidence. This meant that if the opposition failed to lodge a motion of no-confidence and if such a motion was not passed, then the government’s bill would become law.

The Romanian News Agency is reporting that 236 votes were needed to pass the no-confidence motion. However, the motion received the support of only 190 deputies and senators. Therefore, the motion failed and the government’s bill passed.

A further no-confidence motion is planned for Thursday on the so-called Unitary Wage Law.

Romania – Court rules against the government

I met with a Romanian expert at the end of last week and he kindly explained the context of the most recent developments in the country.

In the last post, I was unsure why the opposition had lodged another motion of no-confidence only a few days after the most recent one. The answer, it seems, lies with the government.

The government is proposing an Education reform bill. The bill was being debated in parliament – in the Senate to be precise – when Prime Minister made the bill a matter of confidence, invoking Article 114 of the constitution. This Article states:

(1) The Government may assume responsibility before the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, in joint session, upon a programme, a general policy statement, or a bill.
(2) The Government shall be dismissed if a motion of censure, tabled within three days from the date of presenting the programme, the general policy statement, or the bill, has been passed in accordance with provisions under Article 113.
(3) If the Government has not been dismissed according to paragraph (2), the bill presented, amended, or supplemented, as the case may be, with the amendments accepted by the Government, shall be deemed as passed, and the implementation of the programme or general policy statement shall become binding on the Government.

So, PM Boc was using a parliamentary procedure to speed up the passage of the bill. In retaliation, the opposition lodged another motion of confidence. They were allowed to do so because it was the government who made the bill a matter of confidence. Therefore, even though the opposition deputies who signed the previous motion of no-confidence are not allowed to propose another one for the rest of the parliamentary session, a new motion of no-confidence was allowed under these circumstances.

Events then took another turn. The opposition SDP leader of the Senate, Mircea Geoană, challenged the constitutionality of the government’s decision, arguing that a bill could only be made a matter of confidence prior to being submitted to parliament and not in the course of the parliamentary debate.

SET is now reporting that the Constitutional Court has ruled against the government. So, the bill is no longer a matter of confidence and the no-confidence motion no longer applies. That said, the Romanian News Agency is reporting that the opposition PNL party is now threatening a vote of no-confidence on another bill.

Romania – President vetoes two bills

The Romanian President, Traian Basescu, has returned two bills to parliament.

Agerpress, the Romanian News Agency, is reporting that President Basescu has vetoed a bill that reduced value added tax (sales tax) on basic foods from 24% to 5% and another bill that exempted people on low-level pensions from income tax.

The twist is that the bills were reportedly passed by mistake. My understanding is that they were reforms proposed by the opposition Social Democratic Party (PSD). Agerpress quotes President Basescu as saying “I’ll send back to Parliament the famous laws mistakenly voted for”. Why the bills were passed when the government has a majority is unclear to me. Anyway, the president has now vetoed them.

In a separate report, the PSD is said to have tabled another vote of no-confidence in the government only three days after a previous no-confidence motion was defeated by 17 votes. (See previous post). This motion relates to the government’s education policy.

Romania – Motion of no-confidence rejected

The government of Romanian Prime Minister, Emil Boc, faced a motion of no-confidence yesterday.

The government is a coalition of Boc’s Partidul Democrat-Liberal (Democratic Liberal Party – PD-L) and the Uniunea Democrată Maghiară din România (Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania – UDMR), which means, in theory, it has the support of 216 of the 471 deputies and senators, though party cohesion is rarely absolute. The majority required for a successful motion of no-confidence is 236 votes.

The motion was lodged by the opposition Partidul Social Democrat (Social Democratic Party – PSD), which has 138 seats. Therefore, to be successful, the vote needed the support of the other main opposition party, the Partidul Naţional Liberal (National Liberal Party), as well as independents. The reason for lodging the motion was to protest against the government’s economic record.

In the end, the motion received the support of only 219 deputies and senators. Thus, the motion failed.