2012 month by month in Romania - July: Politicians behaving badly - fair means and foul to remove President, drought destroys crops, more corruption

Politics completely dominated the Romanian news in July, the President was suspended and the question of whether or not he should be indicted was put to a referendum. However it was more a question of how it happened than what politicians did that raised an international outcry and led the European Commission to intervene.

At the beginning of July, Romania's ruling Social Liberal Party (USL) moved quickly to bring about impeachment proceedings against President Traian Basescu. The first step was to replace the heads of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, positions both still held by politicians allied with the President from the Democratic Liberal Party (PDL). Once this had been achieved, a request to open impeachment proceedings was submitted to Parliament. After ousting Senate president, governing coalition removes Chamber of Deputies head After taking over control of Parliament, governing coalition submits request to impeach Romania’s president The first concerns among the international community over the goings on in Romania were also raised as the USL got busy with impeaching Basescu. The Venice Commission head said he had “learned with deep concern of various attempts to exercise pressure on the Constitutional Court of Romania.” Venice Commission deeply concerned by Romanian Government pressure on Constitutional Court While still in the first week of July, several key events occurred that were to have lasting effects over the summer. Perhaps most significant of all was a rushed and constitutionally highly dubious attempt to change the law governing referendums. The aim was to make it easier to secure the President's impeachment in a referendum. Next, Parliament approved the indictment attempt and President Basescu was suspended pending a referendum. National Liberal Party (PNL) leader and USL member Crin Antonescu became interim president, as planned by the USL. In the case of a president being suspended, the head of the Senate takes over as interim. A few days later, PM Victor Ponta was summoned to Brussels to face questions over what was going on in Romania as more and more voices joined a chorus of international concern over the USL's actions. Romanian Government changes referendum law to facilitate presidential impeachment