The state budget kept the parliamentarians until 3 am in the plenary session. What did the elected officials do in Parliament. “Now, what are citizens to watch?”

The parties of power tried to pass on the night from Thursday to Friday and over the debates on the country's budget, and over the vote. This has not happened again. It was a marathon day, which started with a deadlock in the coalition and ended at 3 in the morning with a plenum lacking energy. What was the atmosphere like during the night?

• The assembled budget-finance commissions concluded the discussions on the 2026 budget on Wednesday around 7:30 p.m., after three days of arguments between the parties in the coalition, as well as between the PSD and the AUR, which in the last few days formed point majorities in certain situations.
• The joint plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate began on Thursday at 21:00. The parties in power tried to force the completion of the budget discussions at night, when they wanted the final vote to take place. At 3:00 a.m., the governing coalition announced that the meeting was suspended, and the debate and vote on the budget would resume on Friday at 10:00 a.m.
• The reason for the suspension, according to HotNews sources, was that the AUR elected officials began to demand a vote for each amendment of the party already rejected in the committees, thus the fast-forward procedure desired by the coalition was slowed down.

“March ends and here we are, we have no budget”

Around 1:00 a.m., deputy Dorin Popa, elected on the lists of the Young People's Party (POT), but transferred to the PSD parliamentary group after a conflict with Anamaria Gavrila, says he is unhappy that he was filmed eating pizza.

“I'm telling you that I'm also diabetic. If I don't eat every five hours, my blood sugar drops and I pass out, I fall on the floor. I did everything possible to get over this low blood sugar situation. I resisted, what should I do?”, the deputy begins his statement.

Asked about the late hour at which the country's budget is being discussed, the deputy recalled the reason why he ended up in this situation: “the tensions between the political parties, the opposition, the government and those who are in the coalition, due to those cons on the actual budget, and I mean the solidarity package for people in need”.

“Here, if there was an understanding between the governing coalition and the opposition, before this thing happened, it certainly wouldn't have ended up in this situation tonight.” It actually refers to the agreement between PSD and AUR, which supported certain amendments of the social democrats. The deadlock occurred when an amendment granting a one-time aid to pensioners was not voted on. An AUR leader spoke of an initial agreement between the two parties, but Sorin Grindeanu denied it.

“I prefer to vote, to finish this budget once and for all, because, well, March ends and we don't have a budget, because we need the country's budget to be in force, and then we wait, what can we do? We wait until tomorrow,” continued the elected representative, from the Parliament hall.

In addition to the parliamentarians who left the plenary from time to time, there was a slight commotion in the night and at the kiosk in the parliament. “We're staying here until it's all over,” the salesgirls said, and then they went over what the products were. “For sure these will also sell, because they were sold last time as well.”

At this shop, MPs come from time to time to buy a coffee, biscuits or other products. It is unclear at this time how long the talks will continue into the night.

“Shame on their shame”

Not long after 1:00 a.m., Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan leaves the plenary session. He refuses to make new statements in addition to those already made from the stand, when there were jabs between him and the PSD leader, Sorin Grindeanu.

“If I didn't know the speakers, listening to the previous speakers, I wouldn't know who is in the government and who is in the opposition (…) I could give remarks, but looking at my colleagues in the government and PSD, I am ashamed of their shame”, said Ilie Bolojan, at the budget debate.

“A joke” and “this is not a debate”

Back at the kiosk, several MPs go to buy coffee or water again. Senator Titi Stoica, from the AUR, also walks the halls of the Parliament. He says he doesn't mind the late hour.

“I worked in Great Britain for almost 11 years, I used to work 11-14 hours, I also spent about two and a half hours going to and from work,” says Stoica, who is in his second term in Parliament.

However, he is disturbed by the form of the debate: a “joke”.

“It's the sixth budget I'm participating in and so far the debate time hasn't been reduced to one minute. I've always had two minutes at least to be able to express your opinion,” he says.

“Now, what are citizens to watch?”

“This is not a debate, you can't even bring enough arguments to be able to hope that you can convince your colleagues to vote for your amendment. They were late for over three months, in fact on November 15, as the law says, they were supposed to present the budget in transparency and by somewhere at the end of December to be voted on, the only exception is election years, and this year it was not”, he explains.

He thinks it was better for the debate to take place on Friday during the day.

“We had 8-10 hours, this process would have been finished and it was civilized for everyone, the citizens could also follow. So, now, what should they follow?”, asks Stoica.

TV news stations did not broadcast many moments of this debate – either they opted for other topics or it was too late for live broadcasts.

“Every year the same thing happens”

Back in the Parliament hall. It's 2:00 a.m., and the prime minister is back in plenary. He is surrounded by journalists, but again does not answer questions.

From the shop, the unaffiliated deputy Dumitru Coarnă, elected in 2024 on the SOS Romania lists, approaches. He was previously a deputy, in the period 2020-2024, elected on PSD lists and later switched to AUR.

“Of course you can't pay attention to all the talk that's technical anymore,” he says. Then continue. “But it's not the first time! Every year the same thing happens.”

“It's the same in Parliament: like thieves at night”

At this point, the parties in power begin to discuss whether to end the meeting and resume the next day. Also in the Parliament hall, senator Cosmina Cerva, who is also a member of the budget-finance committee, also criticizes the late hours at which everything is carried out.

“You know that the people say: the night is like thieves. That's a saying from a long time ago. It's exactly the same in Parliament: the night is like thieves”, says the senator who was elected to Parliament on the SOS Romania lists, but now she is part of the Senate Peace – First Romania group, made up of former parliamentarians from Diana Șoșoacă's party and from POT.

She also describes the situation in the plenary session: “All the amendments that were also rejected in the committees are being rejected on a conveyor belt and this is the budget. That is, what the coalition wants. They lied that they would take measures, they did not take any measures, they also spoiled what was definitive, some court decisions (no – regarding the decision of the coalition leaders to move from the money allocated for the return of some sums won in court by magistrates to the amendment requested by the PSD)”.

Cerva says that he conveyed to Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan that “after his many reforms he has so far failed to satisfy any social category”.

Although usually at a joint plenary session of the Parliament the atmosphere is agitated, sometimes even to the point where the speaker from the rostrum cannot be heard, now there are long moments when the plenary session is quiet.

“We should have much more detailed debates”

The number of MPs present seems to have decreased. Some have probably gone home where they can vote online. They are still elected in plenary, but fewer and fewer appear in the halls.

USR deputy Cezar Mihail Drăgoescă is one of them. “This budget thing is once a year and I don't think, personally at least, that it's too much of an effort. The country needs a budget and we have to be responsible,” he says.

He believes that regardless of the day chosen for the debates, discussions were still held at night. “And we weren't sure we'd finish it. Anyway, it's very late, March 20, and we don't have a budget, because there were discussions that were in the coalition and the PSD blocked, as you well know, the reform of the local and central public administration, that's why the budget was delayed”, Drăgoescu explains the situation we're in, without missing a political positioning against the governing partner.

The USR deputy says, however, that a change is needed regarding the way in which the Parliament votes, year after year, on the budget.

“My personal opinion is that this whole process through which the budget passes through the Parliament should be seriously amended, in the sense that three, four days are not enough. We should have, in my opinion, at least 2-3 weeks, to have much more detailed debates on each credit orderer, on each amendment”, says Drăgoescu.

It's 3:00 a.m., and then comes the announcement of the president of the Senate, Mircea Abrudean: “I declare suspended the joint session of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.” The meeting lasted 6 hours.

Debates and voting resume today at 10.00 am. Highlights will be livetext on HotNews.