Ruling coalition wants to shrink Romania's future Parliaments: up to 300 Deputies, only two Senators per county

Romania's ruling coalition the Social Liberal Union (USL) will propose that a maximum number of 300 deputies is included in the new electoral law, set to be enforced by the end of June. Another proposal is to have only two Senators representing each county, according to USL leader, Prime Minister Victor Ponta. This solution would unblock all political discussions around the Parliament structure. Romania currently has its biggest Parliament to date, with 588 MPs, higher than the 471 MPs in the previous Parliament. After the elections at the beginning of December last year, Romania faced a high number of MPs as the uni-nominal system allows all those who got over 5 percent of the votes to be re-distributed based on an algorithm applied at party level. This way, some of those from parties with lower votes managed to get seats in the Parliament, even though they had lost at a local level. The Chamber of Deputies has 412 MPs, while the Senate has 176 MPs, according to Central Electoral Bureau data. In the most recent elections, there were counties which put up five or six Senators for the Parliament – such as Bacau, with five, Bihor and Brasov, also with five, Constanta, with six, Dolj , Prahova and Iasi, each with seven Senators. Bucharest has 17 Senators in the Parliament. Romania has 41 counties and the capital Bucharest - and a drop to two Senators per county would bring the maximum number of seats in Parliament down to 400. editor@romania-insider.com (photo source: presidency.ro)