Romanian Parliament greenlights president’s referendum

Romania’s Parliament endorsed the president’s request for organising a public referendum on May 26.

Initially, the justice expert committee added some recommendations that were interpreted by opposition MPs as doors open for invalidating the referendum. Eventually, the president’s request was approved with no recommendations, Hotnews.ro reported.

Romania's president Klaus Iohannis on April 4 announced two topics that he passed to the Parliament as national interest and could make the subject of the public referendum envisaged by the president for May 26.

The first one regards the regime of the emergency ordinances (OUG): namely, the Government should be banned from issuing such OUGs in the sensitive area of “criminality” and, separately, the OUGs should be subject to appeal to the Constitutional Court (CC). Currently, only the Ombudsman can appeal an OUG to the CC.

The second topic proposed by the President regards banning amnesty and pardon for acts of corruption.

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