Senate President Dragu: Postponement of debate and vote on censure motion not constitutional

The President of the Senate, Anca Dragu (Save Romania Union - Party of Liberty, Unity and Solidarity; USR PLUS), believes the decision of the Joint Standing Bureaus to postpone the debate and vote on the censure motion until after the decision of the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) is not founded on any article of the Constitution. "We had quorum because the PNL [National Liberal Party] and PSD [Social Democratic Party] mobilized. They came to the meeting. Most participated in person, some were online. We have today the joint plenum, in which we will read the censure motion and I believe this is the news of the moment, that the censure motion entered this path. Tricks will continue and have continued today, in the second part of the meeting, so that at the proposal of the UDMR [Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania], the debate and vote on the censure motion was postponed until after the CCR decision. This wait for the CCR decision has no purpose and is not founded on any article of the Constitution," said Dragu on Thursday, after the meeting of the Standing Bureaus. Asked if the joint plenum can decide on another calendar for the debate and vote on the censure motion than that established by the leaderships of the Chambers, Dragu said: "The plenum is sovereign, but we must have majority for such a vote. Thus, we must see the evolution during the plenum. We will analyse together with colleagues and we will make all demarches to respect the Constitution, to move forth with the censure motion, for it to be a legal instrument with sense." "I saw that PNL and PSD are using all the tricks to prevent this no-confidence motion", Dragu added.AGERPRES(RO - author: Livia Popescu, editor: Florin Marin; EN - author: Razvan-Adrian Pandea, editor: Maria Voican)