Lawmakers from the Liberal (PNL) and Save Romania Union (USR) parties protested on September 2 against the Social Democrats' breach of the agreement governing the former ruling coalition, after PSD supported the allocation of several administrative positions to representatives of the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) and SOS Romania.

PSD parliamentarians signed an agreement with representatives of AUR, the SOS Romania party and the national minorities group on the allocation of positions in the Permanent Bureau of the Chamber of Deputies, Csoma Botond, the leader of the Hungarian party UDMR's deputies, said, as reported by Bursa.ro.

“PSD formed a new majority, and we learned about this agreement in the plenary session. We did not sign it. It was signed only by PSD, AUR, SOS and the national minorities group. (...) We have only one quaestor position in the Permanent Bureau, UDMR, in all parliamentary sessions, in all eight parliamentary sessions during the mandate. And there was talk that maybe, maybe we should not have a quaestor position in all parliamentary sessions,” said Csoma Botond, the leader of UDMR's deputies, told Agerpres.

PSD deputy Mihai Ghigiu explained that the new appointments to leading positions in the Chamber of Deputies were made legally, under an agreement between the leaders of the parliamentary groups, including PSD and AUR, denying that PSD had formed an alliance with AUR and SOS Romania, according to G4media.ro. He argued that voting for the appointment of an AUR representative as secretary of the Permanent Bureau of the Chamber of Deputies “does not represent an understanding between PSD and AUR.”

“Yesterday, exactly that happened: a different rotation was operated compared to what was decided a year or so ago. The group leaders, the majority of whom represent the majority of deputies, decided on this new rotation. So no one was deprived of a position, no one was deprived of any right, but effectively a different form of rotation was established for those who exercise the function of secretary of the Chamber,” Mihai Ghigiu said in Parliament.

The reaction came after USR and PNL said they would challenge before the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) the decision adopted by the Chamber of Deputies to replace their representatives with deputies from AUR and SOS Romania.

iulian@romania-insider.com

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