September 18, 2019 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 18.09.2019, 20:15

ADMISSION Romania’s constitutional Court (CCR) on Wednesday partially admitted a
government notification, which signaled a legal conflict of constitutional
nature as the country’s right-wing president Klaus Iohannis refused to appoint
the interim ministers proposed by the Social-Democratic Prime Minister Viorica
Dancila after their partner, ALDE, had left the ruling coalition last month. The
court has also ruled that the president had to sign a decree on the resignation
of Justice Minister Ana Birchall as part of a government reshuffle decided by
the Social Democratic Party (PSD). According to the court, it is the Prime
Minister’s prerogatives to sack ministers and appoint interim substitutes but
the president must sign the decrees in this respect. In another development,
according to the court, Prime Minister Dancila must appear before Parliament
for a confidence vote for the government team after ALDE’s withdrawal from the
ruling coalition, which altered the political structure of the Executive. Shortly
after the Constitutional Court decision, Prime Minister Dancila said the
president committed an abuse violating the Constitution with cynicism and carelessness
causing a government crisis. Dancila went on to say that she would go to
Parliament with a new list of ministers and would unflinchingly ask a
confidence vote for the fresh cabinet. In turn, president Iohannis has said in
a press release that he will make his decisions on applying the Constitutional
Court ruling after the CCR motivation has been published.

COOPERATION The Romanian-Polish cooperation developed through a
strategic partnership, which is strong, viable and future-oriented, Romanian
Prime Minister Viorica Dancila said in Bucharest on Wednesday in a joint
statement with her Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki. The Romanian capital
city hosted the second round of bilateral inter-governmental talks after the
one in Warsaw, last year. The present round of talks took place against the
background of celebrating a decade of strategic partnership, three decades of
democracy and a century of diplomatic relations. The progress made in the
cooperation between the two countries was being assessed, and new objectives
were set during the talks. Several memorandums of understanding were signed for
infrastructure, transport, energy, communication and digitization,
entrepreneurship, the management of EU funds and cooperation between the police
academies of the two countries. The Polish Prime Minister was also received by
Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis on Wednesday.

BILL A bill on the taxation of
special pension benefits, introduced by the Finance Minister Eugen Teodorovici,
was passed by the Senate on Wednesday after being approved by the budget
committee on Tuesday. The document concerns a 30% tax rate of special pensions
ranging between approx. 1,480 euro and 2,115 euro, and a 50% tax rate on pensions above
this threshold.Senators also decided that country presidents’ emoluments in excess of
roughly 1,480 euro should be subject to taxation. The bill is going to be sent
to the Chamber of Deputies, the decision making body in this respect.

(translated by bill)