Romanian Senate’s Legal Committee Agrees With Reexamination Of More Pension Bill Articles

The Senate decided with four to three votes to reexamine several other articles of the bill, besides the article regarding the retirement age.

The Senate’s Standing Office asked the committee for legal matters to decide if the Senate can reexamine more articles of the pension bill, apart from that the president objected to.

The pension bill was sent back to Parliament for reexamination by Basescu, who requested lawmakers lower the set retirement age for women to 63 instead of 65.

The head of state last week sent a letter to Senate Chairman Mircea Geoana, calling for the speedy adoption of the pension bill, which is a condition of the International Monetary Fund for Romania’s bailout loan and also a prerequisite for the adoption, within the legal deadline, of the state budget and the social security budget for 2011.

All members of the Senate’s standing office agreed Tuesday to have the labor committee draw up a reexamination report on the bill by October 26 and hold plenary debates on November 2 or 3, said Senate quaestor Ioan Chelaru.

The reexamination and final adoption of the bill, which aims to overhaul the country’s public pension system, could have been delayed for a long time, as the Constitution does not set timeframe obliging the Parliament to reexamine a bill. Romania was supposed to have adopted the pension bill by the end of September.