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Senate Chairman Calin Popescu-Tariceanu considers that Romania's constitutional system has a "major flaw - the overlapping of the government's and the President's executive powers" and a tentative revision of the fundamental law needs the "support" of all political forces.
"Before we get so far as to organizing a referendum, we must agree to embark on revising the Constitution. I want this to be the outcome of a consensus among political forces, because the revision of the Constitution must first be approved by Parliament and then posed for referendum, and anyway in Parliament we need two thirds. (...) From my point of view, the amendment of the Constitution should not be the result of the exclusive will of the majority but requires a broader support, consensus if possible. Consensus implies everybody's coming to terms," Tariceanu said on Tuesday in the Senate, arguing that agreement should be sought on the directions, subjects and fundamental elements that need to be discussed.
"At the very best, all I have seen among political parties with regard to the revision of the Constitution was just a signal. (...) In the time of the Social Liberal Union (USL), after the 2012 elections, there has even been a Committee on the Constitution's revision, but its activity was snagged for several reasons. I think many realise our constitutional system has a major flaw - the overlapping of the government's and the President's executive powers. We'll have to agree on whether we revise the Constitution, not for the sake of just checking a box, but for sorting out the inherent issues of the Constitution that have been showing us for almost 20 years now the flawed way the institutions operate and what we need to correct," Tariceanu said.
