The
Senate and the Chamber of Deputies in Bucharest on Thursday kicked off a new
Parliament session, the second this year. The package of the Education Law and
amendments to the justice laws, the Criminal Code and the Penal Procedure Code
are high on the talks agenda of the MPs in the PNL-PSD-UDMR ruling
coalition.
The
package comprising the statute of judges and prosecutors, the legal
organization and the Higher Council of the Magistrates has been recently
approved by the Executive and is part of a series of amendments assumed before
the European partners with a view to streamlining the entire legal system. In
fact, amending the justice laws is the objective Romania has assumed both in the National Plan of Recovery and Resilience and the Cooperation and
Verification Mechanism, as the country’s accession to Europe’s border-free area
Schengen depends on the latter. As for the new education laws, they are up to
public debates and have so far attracted a lot of heat from civil society, the
leaders of the main universities and even some of the local political leaders.
The
draft laws comprise major amendments regarding the students’ evaluation exams, as
well as their high-school and university accession. Another priority of the new
Parliament session is the package of laws regarding security. A series of
measures on subsidized energy prices through a new emergency ordinance by the
government is also to be tackled during the new Parliament session.
Several
projects on social issues are also to be discussed and the UDMR has proposed a
project on state subsidies for those using wood as fuel. In turn, the Social
Democratic Party has proposed pension and salary rises so that the minimum
salary may be brought up to 600 Euros.
The
opposition USR has already called into attention the activity of Energy
Minister Virgil Popescu and has announced a simple motion against him. We
recall that during the last Parliament session, the opposition tabled five
simple motions against some ministers in the government headed by Liberal
Nicolae Ciuca but all of them failed to muster the right number of votes.
The
previous Parliament session brought the endorsement of a bill allowing for the
exploitation of gas deposits in the Black Sea. The ‘offshore’ law, initiated by
leaders of the ruling coalition has been endorsed by the two Parliament
Chambers and gas exploitation in the Neptune Deep perimeter in the Black Sea is
to ensure Romania’s energy independence against the background of the conflict
in Ukraine. Under the law, Romania has priority at buying the gas extracted in
this perimeter and the surplus will be exported.
Another
law, which sparked off heated debates in Parliament until its endorsement, was
that on dismantling the department investigating justice crimes.
We
have also witnessed a first: Parliaments of Romania and the Romanian-speaking
Republic of Moldova went on a joint session in Chisinau to convey a common
message of backing the latter’s efforts to join the European Union.
(bill)
