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.