Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-09-12-Speech-3-313-000"
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"en.20120912.21.3-313-000"2
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"Mr President, Romania provides a case study of the trials of transition from Communism – a President alleged to have been a member of the Securitate, a political class so fearful of the files that they fail to publish the past, a culture which 20 years on has still not shaken off all of the corruption of Communism. From this recent episode no party, the European Union included, emerges with much credit.
Commissioner Reding, this was not in any sense a coup d’état, even in your phrase ‘a parliamentary coup d’état’. A majority of Members of a democratically elected assembly voted to impeach a President with a long history of abusing his office, for trying to turn a parliamentary democracy into a presidential fiefdom. The constitutional court declared the procedure for suspending the President to be constitutional. The President himself accepted the procedure when he went to Parliament to answer questions.
What happened then is almost the stuff of fairy tales. It leads many of us to agree with Emil Constantinescu in his letter to President Schulz that the current mandate of the President of Romania is unlawful. In Romania, appointments to public positions are too often partisan. The President has protected his post by placing his pals in positions of power. Transparency International, Freedom House and others have warned against the gradual reversal of the rule of law. Not for the first time, President Băsescu faced impeachment. When he had the referendum law changed, against the advice of the Venice Commission, his friend the Ombudsman rejected a petition to challenge the move at the constitutional court.
In no other EU country is a vote invalid if fewer than half the people participate. So why did the Commission insist on it for Romania? In any other country, if over 85% vote for a president to go, that president is toast.
Part of the problem is that the European People’s Party, keen to boost its majority position, has welcomed into its fold people such as Berlusconi, Borisov and Băsescu – Europe’s B team, playing fast and loose with the rule of law but all part of the EPP and all protected by the EPP. Europe’s Socialists have decided to move their congress this year from Bucharest to Brussels. We know the EPP has no such sense of shame since they gave Prime Minister Orbán a five-minute standing ovation.
They are on the same slippery slope with Saakashvili. I remind you of the words of your own Konrad Adenauer: God placed limits on man’s wisdom but not on his stupidity. Unless all Europe’s parties are scrupulous in their insistence on the finer points of democracy and the rule of law, Europe’s future is in peril.
The best thing for Romania would be new elections both for Parliament and the President, following the advice of the Venice Commission, and then a convention between all parties to set some ground rules about how to behave in a democracy. And the European Union, Commissioner Reding, might also reflect on the advantage of parliaments over presidential systems."@en1
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