Rushed through Parliament, after the fall of the Communist regime, and amended rather cosmetically before Romania joined NATO and the EU, the Constitution is showing its shortcomings and incoherence every day, experts say. The Romanian President is willing to mediate all the suggestions related to the Constitution revision. But he firmly stated that he would not ignore the will of Romanians, clearly expressed at last November’s referendum, to change the Parliament structure to one chamber and reduce the number of parliamentarians. Traian Basescu:

“Irrespective of the parties’ opinions, I want everybody to take into account the Romanians’ option expressed at the referendum”.

Or, except for the pro-presidential Liberal Democratic Party, consistent with its role as mouthpiece of the President, no party agrees with the demise of the Senate and with the cut in the number of MPs.
Practising his leftist rhetoric, the new leader of the Social Democratic Party, Victor Ponta, has invoked the crisis to downplay the importance of the topic.

“If we’re talking about the modification of the Constitution while the Government is increasing the unemployment rate, freezes salaries and pensions and destroys the country from an economic and social point of view, Romanians might think that we are living in a different country and instead of paying attention to their problems we’re more concerned with our political problems.”

From the right wing of the political arena, Liberal vice-president Varujan Vosganian has chosen to stick to tradition:

“A two chamber parliament is a gain of modern Romania’s history, and we should maintain the second representative chamber of parliament in a new form, adapted to the way in which we understand the future administrative-territorial reform.”

However, to the press these arguments are just obstacles in the way of reform. If not an outright form of defiance of two thirds of the voters who turned up at the referendum manifested by a political class diagnosed by analysts as autistic.