Parliament has approved in an online session on Thursday the Romanian President’s decree that is extending the state of emergency in Romania by 30 more days till mid-May due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
The Parliament has agreed the extension by 404 votes in favour, 29 against, and 5 abstentions, despite the Opposition’s previous warnings that they will not vote an extension of the lockdown.
However, the Parliament’s vote has come with some conditions, namely provided that the Government presents a report of its measures on a weekly basis, and that the Court of Accounts checks the expenses made by the rulers during this period.
Moreover, the majority in the Parliament voted that the government will be able to confine the fundamental rights only through draft laws.
On the other side, Liberals have accused the Social Democrats and their partners in parliament that they had therefore blocked the Executive from issuing military ordinances.
“PSD and its red allies, are practically proposing to remove military ordinances, which, during the emergency state, have the role to immediately counter specific situations. For instance, if a military ordinance must immediately intervene to declare a city under quarantine, this is not possible anymore through a military ordinance, which can prompt disasters hard to quantify. From the political perspective, the dialogue claimed by PSD means nothing but using all tools to block the government in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic”, said leader of Liberal senators, Florin Roman.
President Iohannis slams populist politicians who incite to violation of social distancing rules
In a press statement from Cotroceni Palace after the Parliament’s vote, President Klaus Iohannis has launched a harsh attack on the populist leaders who “are inciting” people to violating the social distancing rules, while warning that such actions “are reckless” and can “have tragic consequences”.
The head of state has further criticised the Opposition parties that had conditioned the extension of the curfew, arguing that, after this crisis ends, the political class in Romania must be reset.
“This critical period has mirrored the decades when Romania had been ruled by the principle <leave it, it’ll do, we solve it the next time, let others do it>. Today we clearly see the disastrous effects of this toxic way of thinking and acting, which have hold us out for tens of years”.
“Politicians are the first who will need to change and to understand that we cannot go like this anymore. Change will be yet impossible, unfortunately, in the case of some politicians who, even on these dramatic days, are thinking only of their electoral benefits and, after they had destroyed Romania’s budget in the past years, they are now making wrong proposals that are just burdening excessively a country that they had left exposed and vulnerable. We cannot endanger Romania’s future because a parliamentary majority lacking all legitimacy is today voting populist measures that have no economic support. It is completely immoral to put on the young generation’s shoulders the bill of some future aberrant actions promoted by some irresponsible,” the head of state said.