The government wants to impose restrictions on mayors and local councilors after they are no longer in office. Liberals are 'concerned'

In Monday's meeting of the PNL from the parliamentary group, a draft of an Emergency Ordinance that the Government wants to adopt was discussed. The project stipulates that those local elected officials who were in public positions and influenced or made decisions in a certain field are not allowed, after leaving public office, for one year, to engage in private employment in the same field, according to HotNews sources. The leader of the PNL senators, Daniel Fenechiu, confirmed to HotNews the existence of the project, but said that it is still at an early stage.

During Monday's meeting of the Liberals some of the MPs opposed the project, according to HotNews sources. Daniel Fenechiu says instead that the meeting was not a tense one, but only that some liberals “expressed some concerns”.

The legislative changes required of Romania as a condition of membership in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) stipulate that local elected officials cannot work privately in certain fields for a period of time after the end of their mandate. For example, a local councilor who was in the Environmental Commission of the City Council will not be able to engage, for a period of time, in the environmental area in a private company.

“It was a discussion related to the fact that I, together with Mircea Abrudean (ed.: the president of the Senate) informed my colleagues that there is a government initiative, the slipper. It refers to certain rules that the OECD requires in relation to the non-occupation, for a period after the end of the mandate, of certain positions that could create conflicts of interest. Since there is no defined form yet, we postponed the discussion until next week,” he declared for HotNews. the leader of the PNL senators, Daniel Fenechiu.

Asked if during the meeting there were tensions regarding this project, Daniel Fenechiu clearly denied this: “If I can still speak today, it means that I remained the leader of the group and I came out well.”

“No, there were no tensions. There were questions and concerns. There were no problems because we did not discuss the text. At the moment when we will have a somewhat final form of the text, we will resume the discussion, probably next Monday,” Fenechiu said.

Does Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan pressure the PNL parliamentarians to agree to the changes?

Asked if Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan forced the PNL parliamentarians to support this project, Daniel Fenechiu stated that he “vehemently” denies this information.

“Bolojan was not present and he did not ask me for anything. So I knew about the meeting that took place with the secretary of state responsible for the OECD at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs last week. He came with a project that had quite a few imperfections. We did not even discuss it very much, some objections were raised, and we are waiting to see a form of project to discuss. So Bolojan did not ask me for anything, he certainly supports any legal text that is necessary for our reception in OECD, but it's hard for me to believe that Bolojan saw the text, and it's hard for me to believe that Bolojan will ask me to support something that's not right,” Fenechiu said in the discussion with HotNews.

“The concern started from provisions such as that an architect who leaves cannot work for a year in the territorial area in which he was. A mayor who terminates his mandate cannot do any activity in that area. So there were some questions that arose more from what appeared in the public space than in the project. Until I see the project in the form submitted by the Government, I refuse to have more extensive discussions, because we risk talking about things that do not exist. And that I refuse”, added the PNL leader.

Daniel Fenechiu also stated that the amendment requested by the OECD should be adopted by the end of November.