Debating and voting the 2019 budget bill are top on Parliament’s agenda at the
beginning of its new session. Submitted to public debate and considered
ground-breaking by its designers, the budget bill is already challenged by the
mayors of big cities. The opposition in turn announced it would submit thousands
of amendments during the debate in Parliament, scheduled for this week.
Parliament’s also eyeing the Government’s emergency decree number 114, whereby
it introduced certain fiscal and budgetary measures, including to so-called
tax on greed for banks, aimed at bringing more revenues to the state budget.
The Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians has called for a delay in the
implementation of the decree until 2020, while the National Liberal Party, the
Save Romania Union and the People’s Movement Party want Parliament to vote
against the law. Senators and Deputies will also discuss the justice laws,
while the Chamber of Deputies will debate a draft law simplifying adoption
procedures. The Senate is expected to debate the draft laws tacitly adopted by
the Chamber of Deputies, dictating that the directors and deputy directors of
special services, namely the Romanian Intelligence Service, the Special
Telecommunications Service, the Protection and Guard Service and the Romanian
Foreign Intelligence Service) can have only a four-year term in office. On the
other hand, Deputy Daniel Constantin has called for the recognition of the new
Pro Europa Party as a new parliamentary faction, made up of 20 members, of whom
16 represented the Social-Democratic Party in the 2016 legislative election.
Daniel Constantin:
Several of my colleagues resigned from the Social-Democratic Party and
are now unaffiliated. I’m calling on you to observe the regulations, which is
quite clear on this matter. I’ve submitted a written request which I hope this
time will get an answer. I recall I also submitted requests on June 1, 2018 and
on December 20, 2018, and got no answer so far.
The requests were rejected by the Chamber of
Deputies. Social-Democrat MP Daniel Suciu explains:
Today our colleagues are in the group of unaffiliated MPs, they have no
parliamentary group, therefore they cannot request a place in the Permanent
Office. If we deduct the unaffiliated MPs from the Parliament majority, which
is what the leaders of the Social-Democratic Party, the Democratic Union of
Ethnic Hungarians, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats and the Group of
Minorities have signed for, we have the exact configuration. The
Social-Democratic Party and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats need to stay
focused on ruling the country and will not engage in unwarranted conflicts with
the opposition.
In the new parliamentary session, the
Social-Democratic Party has three positions of vice-presidents in the Permanent
Bureau of the Chamber of Deputies, a secretary and two quaestors. The National
Liberal Party has one vice-president and one secretary, the Save Romania Union
one secretary, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians two quaestors, the
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats one quaestor and the group of national
minorities one secretary.