Parliament's sitting for debate of censure motion cannot be carried out due to lack of a quorum

The Parliament sitting in which the censure motion was to be debated and voted on this Monday was not possible due to the lack of a quorum, according to the announcement of the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, social democrat Marcel Ciolacu.

Following the roll call, only 226 MPs attended the sitting, the presence of 233 deputies and senators being required.

"We could not proceed to put to a vote the agenda of the extraordinary session," Ciolacu said.

The sitting lacked the deputies of the national minorities and all the PMP (People's Movement Party) MPs. The leader of the UDMR (Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania) deputies, Benedek Zacharie, also announced that no Union parliamentarians are present.
"If there is a quorum, we will be present and we will not vote," he added.

At the same time, the leaders of the PNL (National Liberal Party) and USR (Save Romania Union) groups announced that they were leaving the plenary room.

"The USR group will leave the hall and will not contribute to the quorum," said MP Catalin Drula. The MPs of the PNL, too, will leave the hall, the leader of the Liberal deputies, Florin Roman, said.

Of the unaffiliated senators only Nicolae Marin, Calin Popescu-Tariceanu, Adrian Tutiuanu, Emilia Arcan were present, while among the unaffiliated deputies - Dumitru Lovin.
All 21 Pro Romania Party deputies were present.

Five MPs of the PSD (Social Democratic Party, the censure motion's initiator) groups were absent.

Parliament's sitting, which initially began around 2 p.m., was suspended until 3.30 pm due to a lack of quorum, with only 170 MPs present. The leaders of the parliamentary groups decided to resume the session with a roll call, but the following did not gather the quorum of 233 MPs.