The Parliament sitting in which the censure motion was to be debated and voted on this Monday was not possible due to the lack of a quorum, according to the announcement of the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, social democrat Marcel Ciolacu.
Following the roll call, only 226 MPs attended the sitting, the presence of 233 deputies and senators being required.
“We could not proceed to put to a vote the agenda of the extraordinary session,” Ciolacu said.
The sitting lacked the deputies of the national minorities and all the PMP (People’s Movement Party) MPs. The leader of the UDMR (Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania) deputies, Benedek Zacharie, also announced that no Union parliamentarians are present.
“If there is a quorum, we will be present and we will not vote,” he added, according to Agerpres.
At the same time, the leaders of the PNL (National Liberal Party) and USR (Save Romania Union) groups announced that they were leaving the plenary room.
“The USR group will leave the hall and will not contribute to the quorum,” said MP Catalin Drula. The MPs of the PNL, too, will leave the hall, the leader of the Liberal deputies, Florin Roman, said.
Of the unaffiliated senators only Nicolae Marin, Calin Popescu-Tariceanu, Adrian Tutiuanu, Emilia Arcan were present, while among the unaffiliated deputies – Dumitru Lovin.
All 21 Pro Romania Party deputies were present.
Five MPs of the PSD (Social Democratic Party, the censure motion’s initiator) groups were absent.
Parliament’s sitting, which initially began around 2 p.m., was suspended until 3.30 pm due to a lack of quorum, with only 170 MPs present. The leaders of the parliamentary groups decided to resume the session with a roll call, but the following did not gather the quorum of 233 MPs.
Orban: As far as we are concerned, we only want to see to Romania’s problems
Prime Minister Ludovic Orban considers that the censure motion lodged by the Social Democratic Party (PSD) is “over and done with” and that the Constitutional Court ruling will decide the course of this demarche.”From our point of view, the motion falls outside the constitutional boundaries and we consider that it would be right for no debate and vote to take place thereon. (…) The way I see it, the motion is over and done with, but of course, we must wait for the Constitutional Court ruling, because depending on it we will be able to determine precisely what will follow. The ordinary session starts tomorrow. That’s another weird move, to get with the motion in the third, ordinary session, after lodging it in an extraordinary session and reading it in another extraordinary session. I don’t want to get into these aspects. As far as we are concerned, we only want to see to Romania’s problems,” Orban said on Monday at the Palace of Parliament.
Asked about a possible understanding between the National Liberal Party and PSD, Orban replied: “Understanding, when they move a censure motion? What understanding?! It’s the understanding that they want to take us down and we defend ourselves so that the government can further do its job.”
The Parliament sitting for the debate and vote on the censure motion initiated by PSD was resumed today one hour after an interruption, with the roll call to check the lawmakers’ attendance.
Ciolacu: It was PNL’s strategy not to have quorum at motion debate
The Social Democratic Party (PSD) chairman, Marcel Ciolacu, claimed on Monday that the National Liberal Party (PNL) had a strategy so that quorum was not achieved in the sitting that would have the debate and vote of the censure motion, and that if a vote were cast, the PSD would have had 250 options “for” the motion.
Asked, at the Palace of the Parliament, what happened to the 250 votes that he said last week he would bring to the censure motion, Ciolacu said: “They weren’t today. As you saw, it was a strategy not to have quorum, not to have a vote on the motion. It was a strategy of the PNL, it’s obvious. I told you that if there is a vote we will have 250 votes. Today a vote on the motion was not made.”
Ciolacu mentioned that the PSD does not have the 233 votes necessary to adopt a motion of censure and tried to create a majority.
“The quorum was not achieved, the censure motion not voted upon,” he stated.
The PSD leader also said that in a maximum of two days the National Political Committee of the party will meet and a political decision will be made regarding the steps that need to be taken on the matter of the censure motion, which could not be debated and voted on Monday due to lack of quorum, adding that the motion will not be withdrawn.
“There are discussions, because an extraordinary session is already done, we are entering ordinary session, we have the constitutional right to submit a censure motion or to vote this motion,” Ciolacu declared.
PSD: Romanians could see themselves who supports corruption, party switching and incompetence of Orban Gov’t
All Romanians could see for themselves who supports the corruption, party switching and incompetence of the Orban Gov’t and who opposes it, state the Social Democrats, after, on Monday, the session of the Parliament’s joint plenum in which the censure motion should have been debated and voted could not take place due to lack of quorum.
“The National Liberal Party was so desperate to not lose power, and for this appealed to the most dirty methods of Romanian politics, buying – until the last moment – MPs by the piece. The censure motion submitted by the PSD could not be debated today due to lack of session quorum. They were so afraid to lose power that even those bought on the last hundred meters were not allowed to come to the plenum! Today, all Romanians could see for themselves who supports the corruption, party switching and incompetence of the Orban Government and who opposes it. Contrary to what they claimed in their public statements, the USR [Save Romania Union] and the PMP [People’s Movement Party] have demonstrated that today they govern with the PNL and are responsible for all the decisions of this government,” the Social Democratic Party (PSD) states in a release sent to AGERPRES.
Social Democrats mention that PSD MPs were present in the plenum, with the exception of five of them who “instead of doing their duty towards Romanians, they chose treason.”
“(In) the first meeting of the National Political Council, they will be excluded. The reconstruction of the PSD cannot be done with traitors and opportunists!” the quoted release also shows.
Tariceanu: Cancelled censure motion vote, defeat for Romanians who deserved getting rid of incompetent Gov’t
Chairman of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) Calin Popescu-Tariceanu said on Monday that the cancellation of debates on the censure motion due to the lack of quorum isn’t a victory for the National Liberal Party (PNL) and Klaus Iohannis, but a “defeat” for the Romanians who deserved to get rid of an “incompetent” government.
“The most pathetic government we have ever had stays in office thanks to fraud and lie! In the last days the PNL has thrown in all the government’s material resources to buy lawmakers in order to stay in power. They succeeded in tricking enough of them to have their departure from the helm postponed. Yet even if they fooled and bought a few parliamentarians, I am convinced that they didn’t fool the Romanians who are still waiting for the promised masks, pensions and allowances increased according to the law, or for real measures for the re-opening of schools. Today does not mark a victory for the PNL and Klaus Iohannis, but a defeat for the Romanians who deserved to get rid of an incompetent government that should not be at the Victoria Palace, but on the hallways of the Prosecutor’s Offices, for what they have done lately,” Tariceanu wrote on Facebook.
PM Orban: I thank teams that have been with us, we will continue to work together
Prime Minister Ludovic Orban thanked on Monday Save Romania Union (USR), People’s Movement Party (PMP), Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR), the national minorities’ group and the unaffiliated parliamentarians, who did not participate in Parliament’s sitting for the vote on the censure motion, adding that the necessary quorum could not have been provided even if all Social Democratic Party (PSD) representatives had attended.
“I want to thank the political parties that have been with us and shared our point of view, namely that the motion falls outside the constitutional boundaries, and who did not participate in the quorum. It is about the USR, PMP, UDMR and the national minorities’ group. I want to thank the unaffiliated parliamentarians who understood that Romania needs a Government and who did not support the PSD’s political exploit. If you look at the number of votes, you will see that, had all PSD MPs been present, they would not have met the number of MPs required for the quorum. There were five absentees, you do the maths: 226 plus 5 equals 231. So, here there was a majority that supported us, that understood Romania needs a Government, that this poisonous position is unwelcome and risks throwing Romania into chaos. I thank them for being with us and I am convinced that we will continue to work as well as we have done so far,” Orban shoed in Parliament.
Romania’s Parliament has lost an entire day for an irresponsible PSD to convince itself that its censure motion is ridiculous and cannot be voted on, says USR PLUS co-chairman Dan Barna.
“Today in the Parliament we avoided a political crisis. All the other problems of the country remain,” concluded Barna.
The Gov’t needs full exercise capacity, to provide a guarantee that there is a chance of economic growth, says PM Orban
The government must face immediate, medium- and long-term challenges and needs full exercise capacity to be able to solve the big problems facing Romania, in order to provide a guarantee that there is a chance of economic growth, Prime minister Ludovic Orban said on Monday.
“As far as we are concerned as a government, we believe that what happened today is extremely beneficial for Romania. The government must face immediate challenges, medium-term, long-term challenges and needs full exercise capacity in order to be able to solve the big problems facing Romania. In a nutshell: the implementation of the investment plan and economic recovery in Romania. We have a number of measures that have been adopted and need to be implemented, from the credit guarantee measures for companies to the grant measures of more than two billion euros to small and medium-sized enterprises, either under the Regional Operational Programme, measure 21 and 22, or under the one billion euro grant programme that is granted for investments or for working capital, for areas that have been affected by restrictions during the period of the state of emergency and the state of alert,” Orban said, after the parliamentary sitting on the debate of the motion of censure could not be carried out due to the lack of a quorum.
Orban said that, as of 1 September, with the adoption of the emergency ordinance and methodological rules, the active measures programme for supporting companies and employees, the flexible work schedule, which is financed at European level, comes into force.
“The European Commission has approved an allocation to Romania of 4.99 billion dedicated to this type of active measures, which are extremely important for companies and employees. We have to prepare for the start of the school, we have to prepare for the [local and parliamentary, ed. n.] elections. Today, we adopted the Emergency Ordinance for the elaboration of the resilience and recovery plan, which must be completed by early October and sent to the European Commission as the basis for the absorption of the more than EUR 30 billion to which Romania is entitled for the recovery and resilience facility which is adopted at European level. We need to finalise the position papers on the 2021-2027 budget, the European Union budget, in order to prepare the efficient and useful absorption of European funds in the future budget year,” the Prime minister added, according to Agerpres.
He also said that the government has the right answers to difficult situations and the will to put them into practice.
“The government is faced with extremely difficult situations, to which it must give the right answer and for which we have these answers and we have the will to put them into practice, so that Romania can move forward, to overcome as quickly as possible the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, to really give the Romanians the guarantee that there is a chance of economic growth, of economic development, so that we really have an economic recovery that puts us on a leading position at European level,” Ludovic Orban added.
