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Senate Chairman Calin Popescu-Tariceanu considers that it is important for Parliament to adopt a framework mandate to prepare Romania's representation at the May 2019 Sibiu Summit, and cautions President Klaus Iohannis that according to the constitutional provisions, he represents the national interests and engages Romania by putting his signature on the agreements negotiated by the government.
"We have taken note of President Iohannis's pre-positioning on subjects of particular importance to the debate about the future of the EU27. We caution the President that, according to constitutional provisions, he represents national interests and by signing the agreements negotiated by the government, he engages Romania (Art. 91 of the Constitution). It is therefore important for Parliament to adopt a framework mandate to prepare Romania's representation at the Sibiu Summit, to put forth the national interests in the stage of EU's recalibration and based on which the government of Romania should build alliances for obtaining the necessary support," Tariceanu says in a statement posted on Wednesday on the Senate website.
He points out that the informal Summit of EU heads of state and government due in Sibiu in just four months "will be an important moment to configure debates inspired by the lessons each side has learned from these crises, and based on which EU's future political and legal paradigm should be outlined."
"The signing ceremony for the new Treaty on Franco-German cooperation and integration captures the attention of all member states and of the coordinating institutions of a European Union that is on the verge of a major recalibration exercise after the Eurozone crisis (2009), the refugee crisis (2015), the Brexit crisis (2016) and the European Commission's deepening legitimacy crisis following its approach to the relations with Poland and Hungary regarding the implementation of Article 7 of the Treaty of the EU, and with Romania, in connection with the perpetuation of the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism 12 years after accession," Tariceanu notes.
The head of the Senate argues that "President Iohannis signs yet another blank check on Romania's behalf, before the actual opening of the debate with particularly serious stakes for the future status of the constituent parts of the European construction and for its action as a unitary entity on political, economic or military ground."
In Tariceanu's opinion, "in the context of the election campaign he has embarked on at home and of the medieval-Carolingian paradigm he holds of today's European relations, the President of Romania demonstrates that he understands his presence at the Treaty-signing event, but also the importance of his representativeness in the European concert, from a national perspective, as an unconditional vassal from Eastern Europe, as a temporary representative of an EU institution. (...) From this point of view, the speech of President of the European Council Donald Tusk is (yet again) a model of political approach during this period that precedes negotiations that announce themselves to be difficult," the Senate Chairman concludes.
