Update: UDMR, PSD negotiations fail. Draft laws negotiated by Magyars in Parliament have been blocked. UDMR won’t attend the non-confidence vote

The negotiations between PSD and UDMR leaders on voting the non-confidence motion have been cut off on Tuesday, although the two parties had seemed to have striken the bargain a day ago. Although, earlier in the day Magyar voices claimed that the UDMR won’t vote the non-confidence motion against Grindeanu Gov’t, the official decision of the Democrat Union of Magyars in Romania is to boycot the plenary sitting debating the non-confidence motion, by not attending it.

“We haven’t had any fight, they haven’t pulled our hair or torn our clothes. No camps in the PSD have convinced us,” said UDMR chairman Kelemen Hunor. “I want to see what’s going to be tomorrow and how the country will go on. If it weren’t for the country, I wouldn’t have stopped laughing since last week,” he pointed out, adding that in a healthy democracy not everyone must be in power and that Opposition is needed, too.

The UDMR members have been convened in an emergency meeting on Tuesday at 11:30 to re-evaluate the protocol with the Social Democrats.

Senator Tanczos Barna stated that the UDMR will not vote the censure motion against Grindeanu Cabinet as long as the negotiations with PSD failed.

“As long as yesterday’s deal is not standing anymore, as long as PSD has proposed the withdrawal the agreed draft laws from the agenda, we have no reason at all to get involved in this internal fight of PSD,” the UDMR senator stated.

In retort to this statement, Senate Speaker, Calin Popescu Tariceanu, ALDE chairman, said that discussions with UDMR “have closed down”. Later on, Taricenau underlined that they have the necessary votes for the motion, yet admitting that there will be 16-17 MPs, including from the ruling coalition who will veto it.

Moreover, it seems that the deal with UDMR on granting the Magyar community certain concessions would have been fought right within PSD. Sources quoted by Actual de Cluj revealed that the Social Democrat branches from Transylvania would have harshly protested against the deal with UDMR. More precisely, the MPs from Hunedoara, Alba, Cluj and Mures would have vetoed the draft law on declaring March 15 as Magyars Day and would have imperatively asked Liviu Dragnea to drop the major concessions made to UDMR.

The joint administration and human rights committees in the Senate on Monday had Okayed the draft on declaring declared March 15 as the Day of the Magyars in Romania.

However, on Tuesday morning the joint legal, human rights and public administration committees were called off for the second time, due to the PSD-UDMR disagreements over what should be the proportion of a national minority out of a locality’s population on which using the minority’s language should be mandatory.

The deputies of the three committees have been waiting for an hour for the meeting to start to amend the public local administration law 215/2001, stipulating the decrease of the threshold for using the minorities’ languages in administration.

“The sitting of the three committees scheduled for today will not take place anymore,” PSD deputy Eugen Nicolicea informed his colleagues from the legal committees through SMS.

UDMR deputy Marton Arpad gibed Nicolicea’s announcement by SMS. “The communication have been only by SMS lately, not through the normal parliamentary procedures,” Marton Arpad said.

At the same time, the draft law on declaring May 15 the “Day of the Magyars in Romania” has been withdrawn from the Senate’s plenary sitting agenda on Tuesday.

PNL asks PM Grindeanu to resign, PSD to give up draft laws meant for UDMR

The negotiations between the Magyar Union and the Social Democrats seeking support for the motion against Grindeanu Cabinet have been slammed by the public opinion and by other parties.

The new chairman of the Liberal Party, Ludovic Orban, has criticized both the PSD and PM Grindeanu in this affair. Orban has asked for PM Grindeanu’s consciousness resignation, while calling on the SocDem MPs to veto the draft laws “strainedly” tabled in several parliamentary committees on Monday.

“PSD is betraying Romanians’ fundamental interests to solve their clan accounts inside the party. PNL will fight with all weapons against the trade offs made by Dragnea’s clan with the UDMR. At the same time, we appeal to the one who is keeping tight hold on the premier position. I ask Sorin Grindeanu to file a consciousness resignation that might prevent an act of treason. If Sorin Grindenau doesn’t understand the situation and is refusing the resignation, I ask PSD lawmakers not to be contaminated with their leader’s madness and I ask them to veto the draft laws strainedly introduced on the agenda by the PSD chairman,” Orban stated.

In their turn, the People Movement Party (PMP) protested against the concessions allegedly made by PSD to UDMR. The PMP MPs came to the Parliament on Tuesday morning wearing the tricolor on their arms.