The Save Romania Union (USR) supports the bill to downsize Parliament to 300 lawmakers, which is currently in the parliamentary approval sequence, and will oppose the extension of the debate period, USR Senate floor leader Stefan Palarie said on Monday.
"We will vote against the extension of the deadline for this bill. The '300 lawmakers initiative' was submitted by a colleague of ours and is backed through the 2009 referendum by millions of votes of Romanians who said: 'yes, we want a leaner, more efficient Parliament'. (...) The bill we sent into the parliamentary circuit is for a bicameral Parliament, with Senate and Chamber of Deputies, but much more flexible, with 300 MPs," Palarie said.
He also referred to the Moldovan Parliament, which functions smoothly with 101 lawmakers.
"We were looking the other day, following the elections in the Republic of Moldova, at how a Parliament with 101 MPs can function. Of course, the population is much smaller, there is a proportionality of representation, but Romania, as Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan said, can do very well with 300 lawmakers, with a fair, efficient, bicameral debate procedure," the leader of the USR senators said.
Asked about the fact that the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR) does not agree with this project, Palarie replied: "We are still in talks, I gather this is one of the two major topics of tomorrow's coalition meeting, alongside the date for the Bucharest local election. We'll see our colleagues' position at the vote".
Palarie also mentioned that the National Liberal Party explicitly said that it would vote in favor of this project.
USR deputies Cristina Pruna and Claudiu Nasui announced in May that they had re-submitted to Parliament the bill that provides for the cut in the number of MPs to 300 from the current 464. The legislative blueprint is now on the table of Senate's select committees.
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