The Senate’s President, Calin Popescu-Tariceanu asserts in an interview with AGERPRES that the organisation of a referendum on the civic initiative of the Constitution amendment with respect to the family definition, in debate at the Parliament’s Upper Chamber could take place most probably this fall.
The Chairman of the Liberals and Democrats Alliance (ALDE, minor at rule) says that inside the ruling coalition collaboration “works great” and doesn’t rule out – as the Social Democratic (PSD, major at rule) leader Liviu Dragnea doesn’t either – for the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR) to join them.
The head of the Senate says that “he wishes and is keen to make it real, and not from yesterday or today, but certainly in this legislature, predominantly, to redesign the public space and in the public opinion’s eyes, the role of the Parliament, in the constitutional architecture of Romania.”
Calin Popescu-Tariceanu asserts in the interview that he has in view two legislative initiatives, namely the setting up of the “National Independent Authority for phone wiretapping, considering that Romania holds lately, as you know, an unwanted record, of over 300,000 telephone calls monitored. And, a second aspect, the loby law.
In connection with the staging of a referendum on the family definition by the marriage between a man and a woman, Tariceanu says that to him as a Liberal, “without disregarding the opinion of a large number of our citizens, I have in view this necessity to grant each and every one the freedom to choose their own path in life, but at the same time, it is also a political, as well as a legal and constitutional obligation to consult the citizens and after a referendum, to know exactly what we have to do. This will be the path I’m going to step on and it is most probably that this fall the necessary conditions be met legally to stage the referendum.”
Referring to the inquiry committee of the 2009 presidential elections, Tariceanu says he has “a very particular interest, firstly for this committee to show it operates and affirm once again, because we are talking about the role of the Parliament at the beginning, to show the control role of the Parliament over the activities of the Executive and its role of assessment of the legal and constitutional slippages, because we have the obligation to draft the legislation as such to strengthen the rule of law. (…) Therefore, I very much want for this committee to start to put the flashes on what we call today, more and more, the parallel state.”
