Romanian Chamber Of Deputies Rejects Proposition To Retake Vote On Pension Bill

The opposition Social Democratic Party filed Tuesday criminal complaints against Chamber of Deputies Speaker Roberta Anastase and lawmaker Sever Voinescu for allegedly marring last week’s vote on the pension bill. People close to the matter told MEDIAFAX social democrats accuse Anastase of abuse of office and forgery and Voinescu of fraud, because he was the meeting secretary when the bill was put to the vote.

The Chamber of Deputies last week enacted the bill with 170 votes in favor, two against and three abstentions, after ten hours of debates and in the absence of lawmakers from opposition parties (Social Democratic, Liberal and Conservative), who had walked out.

Social democrat leader Victor Ponta said video footage of the meeting shows there were no more than 80 lawmakers in the room and the required quorum to pass the bill was not met.

Romania needs to adopt a unitary pension law to receive a new installment of about EUR900 million from the International Monetary Fund. The IMF said the law must be enacted by end-September. The pension bill was passed tacitly by the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies has to enact it before it is sent to the head of state for promulgation.