Loading ...‘My decision for the referendum was generated by the politicians who have failed to keep their words. In 2005, all the political parties agreed that the Constitution has to be reviewed. Nothing has happened. They have cheated me. Politicians were offered all the conditions to avoid a referendum.
They were offered a report by the presidential board on constitutional revision and its proposals to eliminate the existing ambiguities. I remember that immediately after the 2004 election a party leader said we will have a new republic and a fully rewritten Constitution.
There was huge enthusiasm but zero political willing. Now the opposition against the referendum is visible and there is also an attempt at instilling the idea that I want to install dictatorship by switching to a single- chamber Parliament.
For those thinking this way I want to argue that 14 states in the European Union already have a unicameral parliament and none of those politicians claiming that I am installing dictatorship has ever stated that there is dictatorship in Bulgaria, Sweden or Cyprus and I have not heard the citizens of these countries suspecting their people in power of dictatorship. This is one of the lies perpetrated by the Romanian politicians,’ said Basescu.
The President also mentioned other countries in the EU that have a bicameral parliament, yet arguing that their senate has another role to play than the Romanian Senate.
‘In Germany, the Bundestag has members appointed by the lands with flexible mandates and the land government can always suspend them from office. The Netherlands has a 75-seat Senate elected by the councils of the country’s 15 provinces.
Belgium, a federal state, has a 71-seat Senate of four categories of directly elected officials – Flemish senators, elected directly as representatives of the French-speaking electorate, while the remaining are more or less appointed, including the throne heirs. The UK has the House of Lords with hereditary seats. I have not detected any Romanian politician who wants to convey the seats hereditarily instead of by vote. Romania’s President does not create either senators or lords,’ the President said, adding that these are the arguments why 13 of the EU’s 27 member states have bicameral parliaments.
Basescu also said that power and sovereignty belong to the people and they can exercise both directly on November 22. The President also provided arguments for the cut in the number of MP seats from a current 471 to at most 300.
‘Why 300 at most? Because it has to do with representative norms and I could not analyse whether or not each county is fully represented by the number of MPs. One MP cannot cover two counties and that is why I left politicians the right to analyse the norm so that each county may be fairly covered. By the 100,000-voter norm for one MP, as is now, a seat covers two counties,’ said Basescu.
He mentioned that the decision to hold the referendum is strictly connected to the refusal by politicians to review the Constitution and reform Parliament as part of the reform of the political class. ‘Proof is the signal from Parliament, which issued a majority negative opinion on the referendum,’ the President pointed out.
He explained that he is in favour of a unicameral Parliament also because law adoption procedures will be simplified.
‘We have a Parliament with two chambers and similar powers that double the prolongation of the time needed to pass legislation. In another line of thought, it is obvious that Romania has a Parliament where responsibility to the people is highly diffuse. Nobody knows who is responsible for the delay of laws. It is said globally that Parliament is responsible.
This global responsibility is not right. A unicameral parliament will make the MPs responsible before those who elected them. Currently an MP in the Chamber of Deputies is overlapped by a senator with two-three colleges and the citizens no longer know who is responsible for promises being broken,’ said Basescu. The President said that spending cuts is another advantage of a unicameral parliament.
‘Democracy is more expensive than dictatorship and money saving should not be disregarded. By optimising costs very important resources are freed that run in the province of billions,’ he said.
The President argued that the process of institutional reform and the law to reduce the number of government agencies and the staff at minister’s offices, for which Government assumed responsibility before Parliament, have to be continued with reforming Parliament. President Traian Basescu on Monday held a press meeting with local media leaders at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace, the same he did two years ago when he faced impeachment after Parliament suspended him from office.
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