PSD Deputy calls on President Iohannis to ‘immediately’ organise referendum on local autonomy

Social-democrat Deputy, Razvan Rotaru, calls on President Klaus Iohannis to organise, as soon as possible, a referendum on local autonomy. The request comes in the context of the resolution signed on Monday by the Magyar political organisations referring to amending the Constitution.

“I believe the time has come for us to react institutionally and to complete once and for all the issue of autonomy requested every year by those who claim to represent ethnic Hungarians in Romania, so I believe it is appropriate to immediately trigger the procedures to organize a referendum on the autonomy and all Romanian citizens from all over Romania and from the Diaspora to participate and answer, not only in certain counties, as some politicians want. Following the results recorded, we will see what opinion have all the residents of the country, as well as those from abroad who have the right to vote, and then a resolution will be passed by the Romanian Parliament and will put an end to this subject definitively,” the deputy said on Tuesday.

The PSD MP proposes that the questions for the referendum be: “Do you agree with the territorial, local and cultural autonomy of ethnic Hungarians in Romania?” and “Do you agree with the elimination of the 5% national threshold for access by each political party to the Parliament of Romania and with the introduction of the 5% electoral threshold for each political party, in each county, for access to the Romanian Parliament?” a press release reads.

Rotaru says he will propose to the colleagues from all parties, when the parliamentary session resumes on February 1, to update the electoral law by introducing the electoral threshold for each party, in each county, so that there is a more accurate representation of all citizens in the Parliament.

On Monday, the leaders of the three parties representing the Hungarian community in Romania, UDMR, PCM and PPMT signed a joint statement in Cluj, calling for territorial, local and cultural autonomy. UDMR chairman, Kelemen Hunor, said that “there is a need to amend the Constitution,” given that the fundamental law does not allow territorial autonomy

UDMR chairman Kelemen Hunor said in a joint press conference with the leaders of the two other parties, Biro Zsolt (Hungarian Civic Party – PCM) and Szilagyi Zsolt (Hungarian People’s Party of Transylvania – PPMT), that there are three kinds of autonomy which they claim – territorial, local and cultural, which he would like to discuss with the Romanian majority, in this year of the Centenary of the Great Union, and have it legalized.