Orban says PNL, USR PLUS internal political struggle not delaying coalition reforms

National leader of the National Liberal Party (PNL), major at rule, Ludovic Orban said on Tuesday that the internal political struggle between the two sides making up the ruling coalition - PNL and the Save Romania Union - Freedom, Unity and Solidarity Party (USR PLUS) alliance, both of whom are preparing for their congress conventions, does not delay reforms. "No. The state pension law, the public sector pay law, the justice legislation are not laws to be done overnight, as haste makes waste, we have to be prepared very seriously, we have to debate and especially we have to understand each other at the coalition level, because the laws will be adopted by Parliament and in order to have a majority we must put forth bills that will be adopted at the coalition level, accepted and supported by all partners," Orban said. Asked if there is a problem in the governing coalition, in the sense that the Government-Parliament relationship does not work, as USR PLUS Deputy Prime Minister Dan Barna said, Ludovic Orban said that it works "very well." "It works very well. They referred to two or three laws. About the law disbanding the special court section, we have halted the adoption procedure, we took a decision at the coalition level, we adopted the bill in the Chamber of Deputies, in the form in which we agreed in the coalition, after which the Venice Commission was notified by the justice minister. The decision at the coalition level is to wait for the point of view of the Venice Commission, to meet after receiving the point of view of the Venice Commission and to define the form of the law abolishing the special section. The second law is the law amending the law made by the Social Democratic Party (PSD) that forbids the sale of shares, assets, we are now in quite a state: there is literally no other European Union member state to have such a law in force. The problem we have during the adoption is that it is referred to the Committee on Industry and Services, which is chaired by Mr Bende Sandor, and the Economic Committee, led by a PSD lawmaker who does not want to convene a meeting and put on the agenda that bill. That is the problem; it is not the fault of the coalition," Orban said. He added that there some disagreement over a bill on child allowances. "There was also a discussion on another bill that does not exist. That is not due to a lack of co-operation - the saga of the allowance. We have decided very clearly inside the coalition after the government was sworn in office that we will respect the commitment to double the allowances that was in that law and that we will make an increase by the remaining fifths, the three of them in early 2021, in early 2022, and in 2023. The ordinance that was adopted by the government did not provide for this. Why are you not asking me about that? In the Senate, I corrected it by an amendment to the law adopting the emergency ordinance at the end of the year, that of practical preparation of the national budget law, after which, in the Chamber of Deputies, several coalition partners were no longer interested in the subject. We have the matter back on the front burner inside the coalition and in the end we made the decision, and the decision was that we adopt the bill in parliament, but there is a risk of it being challenged with the Constitutional Court (CCR), if it cannot be adopted within the deadline allowing it to enter into force before July 1; the government will issue an emergency ordinance to comply with the coalition's decision," Orban said. AGERPRES (RO -author: Sorinel Penes, editor: Mihai Simionescu; EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Adina Panaitescu)