The Parliament in Bucharest has convened on Monday, in a joint session, to vote on the draft law on the elimination of the special pensions of deputies and senators.
Deputies and senators adopted, with 382 votes in favor and 3 abstentions, the elimination of the special pensions of the parliamentarians. The PNL leadership has warned liberal MPs that they will be expelled from the party if they do not vote in favor of the bill.
Independent Senator Diana Șoșoăcă (former AUR) once “staged a show” in the plenary session. After he intervened numerous times on the microphone to block the debates, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Alfred Simonis, cut off Sosoaca’s microphone. In retort, Soșoacă brought a whistle and a clapper which he used in the plenum tribune, thus blocking the general debates.
After the vote, the show went on, with PM Marcel Ciolacu slamming Şoșoacă in front of the press, for making a circus in the plenary, when Șoșoacă intervened and began to accuse him of “selling the country to America”. Ciolacu sent her to the Russian Embassy instead.
When asked about Diana Soșoacă’s behavior in plenary, Ciolacu said: “At the Russian Embassy, she neither blew the whistle nor rang the bell.” While making statements to the press, Sosoacă intervened accusing that the opposition parliamentarians are not allowed to speak. “Go to the Russian Embassy”, was Ciolacu’s reply.
“Go to America and lick its doorknob! You sold the country to America, along with all Romania’s resources“, said Șoșoacă.
“Ma’am, you are a filthy liar,” said Ciolacu.
Sosoacă accused him of “slanderous” and “rude” language, while the prime minister walked away from the statements.
The draft bill to repeal the MPs special pensions, initiated by PSD deputy Alfred Simonis, amends Law no. 96/2006 regarding the status of deputies and senators in the sense of repealing the provisions of Chapter XI, which aims to grant the right to the allowance for the age limit that deputies and senators benefit from. On Thursday, the Joint Commission for the status of deputies and senators gave a report on the adoption of the project, registering 7 votes “for” and one abstention.
The PNL and PSD leaderships will meet before the plenary session.
“We want a resettlement on solid foundations, both of the system of service pensions and of the system of allowances for the age limit granted to parliamentarians who have completed one or more mandates. That’s why legislative measures are needed to erase the inequities in the system, the elimination of the allowance for the age limit of parliamentarians being one of these measures to eliminate discrimination against people who benefit from pensions based on the contributory criterion”, says Statement of Reasons of the legislative project.
“At the same time, considering the crisis situation that our country is going through as a result of the post-pandemic economic effects, but also of the conflict in Ukraine with major economic consequences for the country as well, we believe that the parliamentarians should be the first to show solidarity and respect in spending public money in order to regain the trust of the population in public institutions in general and in the institution of the parliament, in particular”, the quoted document also states.
The initiators argue that “MPs should benefit, like all citizens of this country, exclusively from a pension in the public pension system, on a contributory basis”.
“This legislative initiative is a step towards ensuring equity between citizens, by repealing the articles related to the special allowances of parliamentarians. At the same time, by repealing these provisions, a positive budgetary impact will be recorded, ensuring the relief of the state budget from the payment of substantial amounts”, the Explanatory Memorandum also says.
“Maintaining the payment of these allowances would put additional pressure on the state budget in an economic context put to the test by the successive sanitary, economic and geopolitical crises that have befallen our country in recent years”, the initiators also state.
Repealing the special pensions of the Romanian lawmakers has been repeatedly asked by the European Commission and Romania has been even warned to not receive a tranche of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan if the rulers don’t deal with this issue.