Romanian Govt. to hold first meeting since President announced plans to attend

The Romanian Government is set to meet today, after the no-confidence vote in Parliament. It is the first meeting since President Klaus Iohannis announced plans to attend each Government meeting. President Iohannis is scheduled to meet Sebastian Kurz, the Chancellor of Austria, tomorrow, December 21. The Presidential Administration has not announced events or meetings on his agenda for December 20. Iohannis previously asked the Government to inform him in advance of each meeting’s agenda, implying he wants to prevent the endorsement of bills such as the amnesty and pardon ones. The Government published on December 19 the agenda for today’s meeting. Many times, it announces its agenda an hour or less before the meeting takes place. The announced agenda includes two emergency ordinances regarding the financing of several healthcare expenses, informative activities regarding agricultural policies, and several draft law proposals. Still, the agenda can be changed last minute and new projects can be added to it. The emergency ordinance adding supplementary taxes and fees in the banking, energy and telecom sectors will be discussed at the meeting, Economica.net reported. President Iohannis previously asked the Government to “change its mind” on the ordinance concerning the new taxes, saying that “it brings chaos to the economy” and that “it is a serious reason for concern for all Romanians.” The President also said the ordinance is proof that there is a problem with the state budget. “They do not have money, don’t know how to get it and invent new taxes on the spot,” he said. He also reminded everyone that the Social Democrat Party (PSD) and PM Viorica Dăncilă promised they would not increase taxes. The President can attend Government meetings when issues of national interest concerning foreign policy, defense, or public order are discussed, according to the Constitution. The President can also attend when invited by the PM. The President presides over the meetings he attends but cannot vote on the legislation discussed. For some pundits, Iohannis’s decision to attend Government meetings is a way of putting public pressure on the Government and prevent it from passing ordinances such as the amnesty one. The first, and so far only, time Iohannis attended a Government meeting was in January 2017, when the cabinet led by Sorin Grindeanu was preparing to pass the infamous emergency ordinance OUG 13, chaining the criminal code so as to pardon several sentences and discriminate some acts. The