Coalition agreement on reducing the number of senators and deputies. Tanczos Barna: “The option of 300 MPs is dangerous”
The plenary session of the Parliament. Photo: Laurentiu Ungureanu / HotNews
Deputy Prime Minister Tanczos Barna stated, on Digi24, that in the governing coalition there is an agreement in principle regarding the UDMR's proposal to reduce the number of parliamentarians by 10%, stating that reducing the number of parliamentarians to 300 would affect the representativeness of the Parliament.
“Minus 10% parliamentarians. It was first discussed two weeks ago as an idea put on the table by the UDMR. There is an agreement in principle. The option of 300 parliamentarians is a dangerous option for democracy, representativeness”, said Deputy Prime Minister Tanczos Barna, quoted by News.ro.
According to him, there is a risk of counties appearing where the elected parliamentarians are from a single political formation.
“If the number of senators increases a lot, for example, and the Constitution is not changed and we must have two Chambers, and the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, if the representativeness is very small and we do not have at least two parliamentarians, two senators, at the county level, we can find ourselves with single-color counties”, explained Tanczos Barna.
Asked why the number of MPs cannot be reduced by more than 10%, Tanczos Barna explained that this was the UDMR's proposal.
“I don't want to say that it is not possible. This is our proposal. It is the exact number or the percentage of reduction. If representativeness is affected, there is a problem. 300 is certainly not possible. From my point of view, 300 parliamentarians means an impairment of representative activity at the national level. 10% or 11% is the exact number, the reduction in the number of Romanian citizens according to the last census compared to the penultimate one. And if we go with this percentage, we are practically in the same margin as 10% central administration, 10% local administration, staff cuts and so on. Things can be decided. You need a bit of political will, as Mr. Kelemen said at one point, feet in cold water and decision,” added Tanczos Barna.
The USR submitted a legislative proposal to reduce the number of MPs to 300 to implement the 2009 referendum.
The project does not meet the consensus of the coalition, so on October 13, the Senate voted to extend the deadline for tacit adoption.
