They said a revision of the Constitution should be the result of proposals and amendments submitted to the Constitutional Forum. The president’s proposal was only supported by the Liberal Democratic Party and the Dan Diaconescu Party of the People, in opposition, who argued that it reflects the results of a referendum held 4 years ago. The draft law will next be debated by the Senate.

In order to pass, a draft law needs the support of two thirds of all MPs in each Parliament chamber, which is not very likely to happen given that the Social Liberal Union has a solid parliamentary majority. In March, the president asked Parliament to discuss his draft law on the revision of the Constitution, saying this document reflects the wish of the Romanian people expressed in the 2009 referendum to have a single chamber parliament with a maximum of 300 MPs.

His draft law also proposes that Parliament should be dissolved within 45 days, instead of 60 at the moment, in case two consecutive governments are rejected by Parliament, in order to reduce the possibility of a political crisis. While the deputies rejected the amendment to the Constitution proposed by the president, the senators approved a number of changes to the referendum law. These changes will next be submitted to the Chamber of Deputies, the decision-making body in this case.

According to the new changes, the minimum voter turnout required for a referendum to pass is reduced from 50% to 30%. The change applies to all types of referendum, including the impeachment of the president and the amendment of the Constitution. Also, the results of the referendum are considered valid if the number of valid votes cast account for at least 25% of the number of registered voters.

In a referendum held in July 2012, 7.4 million Romanian voters were in favour of impeaching president Basescu out of the 8.5 million who cast their ballots, with 18 million people being registered voters. The referendum was not considered valid by the Constitutional Court because voter turnout was below 50%.