Priorities of the parliamentary session
The senators and deputies elected in December are starting the first parliamentary session.
Daniela Budu, 01.02.2021, 01:50
The Bucharest Parliament has started a new session. The agenda of the Romanian MPs includes, in the upcoming weeks, projects regarding the revision of the justice laws, the reform of the healthcare and education systems, the reform of the pension and salary systems and the adoption of a modern electoral code. A number of draft laws, aimed at solving social problems, will also be discussed. However, the top priority is the national budget for 2021 and the law on the caps the budget is built around.
Among the priorities announced by the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Ludovic Orban and the National Liberal Party (PNL), the main party of the ruling coalition, are the correction of a number of laws that have generated problems in time and bringing some laws in line with the Constitutional Court’s rulings. Ludovic Orban: ”Together with the Government we plan to make some important modifications and corrections to the justice laws and initiate the debate and adoption procedure of some laws aimed at reforming the pension and salary systems as well as the education and healthcare systems.”
In her turn, the Speaker of the Senate, Anca Dragu, with the USR-PLUS Alliance, told Radio Romania that she plans to focus on economic and social projects during the current parliament session: ”As regards the economy, I want to focus mainly on the access of companies and entrepreneurs to financing, because this is the solution to resume economic growth. Then, there are the social aspects: classes from 8 am to 5 pm, that include a warm meal and also optional and sports activities in schools.”
The 2021 draft budget will be a priority for parliament in the upcoming period. The document is not completed yet, although the leaders of the ruling coalition have had a number of meetings on this topic. The Social Democrats, in the opposition, have come up with their own draft budget proposal, which party leader Marcel Ciolacu presents as an alternative to what he sees as an austerity budget proposed by the government. The PSD vice president, Gabriela Firea, says that unlike the government’s draft budget, her party proposes a budget focused on development and not on freezing salaries. Also in the opposition, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), an ultra-nationalist party, wants the money it receives from the state budget to be used for building a hospital. (Translated by EE)
