The Senate plenary session, held on Monday, was suspended after the draft law on organizing the presidential elections of 2025 did not get enough votes for adoption.
Presidential elections 2025, temporarily blocked in the Senate. Photo: Archive
The suspension proposal came from PNL leader Daniel Fenechiu, who requested that the debate be resumed after an analysis of the regulation commission.
“The proposal we make is to suspend the meeting, we remain in the stage where the report did not have the number of votes. Tomorrow we discuss the regulation commission. Proposes the suspension of the meeting at this time, at this time of the law, to debate what we submit to the moment when the regulation commission was pronounced“, Daniel Fenechiu said in front of the plenary.
The legislative project provides for the conduct of the presidential elections on May 4, 2025, with the possibility that the Romanians from the Diaspora also vote on Friday and previous Saturday. An amendment proposed by the USR, which guarantees the access of Romanians from the diaspora to the vote under the same conditions as those in the country, was initially admitted, but later rejected, arousing dissatisfaction.
“Amendment USR In order to give the possibility of the Romanians in the diaspora to vote, he was submitted to the vote until the vote came as he had to be rejected. Finally, to pass the draft law needed 68 votes. Not taking the report and the draft law, the law was rejected. There is no such thing in the first room. In order to justify this way of voting, they came with decision number 972 of October 31, 2007 (…). All the argumentation of those in power was based on a decision of the Constitutional Court that referred to a draft approval of the emergency ordinance in the decision -making chamber. This is not the case, for this project of approval of the GEO is the Chamber of Deputies ”explained USR Irineu Darău senator.
The representatives of the USR, including Senator Narcis Mircescu, criticized the way in which the parliamentary majority justified the rejection of the project by a decision of the Constitutional Court applicable only in the decision-making chamber.
“On this draft law, Senate It is not a decision -making chamber, as a result, the CCR decision with which you came to change the Senate work is not applied. As a result, we must find that the law has fallen and go to the decision -making chamber as a daughter law. There is no text to support something else ”Mircescu stressed.
As a sign of protest, the gold parliamentarians, SOS Romania and the party of young people left the plenary room, dissatisfied with the rejection of the amendment regarding the right to vote of the Romanians from the Diaspora.
The favorable report of the project included other amendments, among which one proposed by PNL senator Cristian Niculescu-Ţâgârlaș, which provides for the obligation of large online platforms to submit to the Romanian legislation and to pay taxes on the territory of the country. In case of repeated non -observance of this obligation, the suppliers can be sanctioned with fines between 1% and 5% of the annual turnover.
Another adopted amendment, proposed by the UDMR senator Istvan-Silard Tasnadi, provides for the inclusion of a representative of the National Council for Combating Discrimination (CNCD) in the composition of the auxiliary technical personnel of the Central Electoral Bureau.
All the amendments proposed by the opposition were rejected, including the one who aimed to challenge the elections at the High Court of Cassation and Justice, under conditions of transparency.
The debates will continue after the regulation commission issues a decision on the voting procedure, and the project will be submitted again to the Senate.
