Instability and reforms: the image of the Parliament, at the end of the 2020-2024 legislature

The Parliament established following the 2020 elections ends its four-year mandate today, a period that can be characterized as one marked by major crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the energy crisis following the war in Ukraine, political instability, essential legislative reforms, but also one marked by scandalous incidents and significant changes in the parliamentary composition.

During the period 2020-2024, the Chamber of Deputies was led by five presidents: Ludovic Orban, Marcel Ciolacu, Alfred Simonis (interim), Sorin Grindeanu (interim) and Daniel Suciu. The frequent changes reflected the political instability and realignments in the Parliament. During the legislature, many parliamentarians migrated from one party to another or became unaffiliated. Of these changes, 16 liberal MPs formed the Forţa Dreptei party, and 10 USR MPs left the party to establish REPER.

From the beginning of the legislature until its end, 21 simple motions were submitted, of which 17 were rejected, one was withdrawn and others did not reach the debate for various reasons. PSD initiated four simple motions, targeting ministers such as Vlad Voiculescu (Health), Cristian Ghinea (Investments) and Adrian Oros (Agriculture). USR submitted 17 simple motions, some signed by unaffiliated MPs. In addition, during the period 2020-2024, Parliament debated two motions of censure of the Government. The first, initiated by PSD in June 2021, was rejected, but the second, in October of the same year, led to the dismissal of the Florin Cîţu Government.

• Laws to combat the pandemic and protect the population from rising energy prices

The first year of the legislature was largely dedicated to measures to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. Among these, we mention the project to introduce the Green Covid Certificate, later abandoned, granting days off for parents in the event of school suspension, the application of the kurzarbeit model, laws that supported the rescheduling of festivals suspended during the pandemic, and granting a day off for vaccination.

This period was also marked by a protest organized by AUR, which degenerated, with some protesters entering the courtyard of Parliament and causing damage.

The following year, 2022, was marked by the effects of the war illegally launched by Russia in Ukraine, which led to the adoption of measures aimed at protecting the population against the exponential increase in energy prices and against galloping inflation. Thus, Parliament amended and adopted the emergency ordinances repeatedly issued by the Government regarding compensation and capping of energy prices. In addition, deputies and senators managed to adopt a constitutional law by which they abolished the famous Section for the Investigation of Justice Crimes (SIIJ), a Prosecutor's Office department established by PSD - the party led at the time by Liviu Dragnea - and Tudorel Toader, in order to put pressure on the independence of magistrates in the administration of justice. Also in 2022, Parliament managed to realign the justice laws with European principles, after the respective legislative package had been drastically amended, contrary to the rule of law, during the period 2016-2019 by the PSD-dominated Legislature. Following the abolition of SIIJ and the amendment of the justice laws, the European Commission ordered the lifting of our country's supervision of the rule of law through the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism established in 2007.

In the field of energy, parliamentarians managed to adopt the offshore law, which regulates onshore and offshore oil operations.

Two other more important normative acts approved in 2022 are the law on the protection of public whistleblowers - which transposes the European directive on the matter into domestic legislation, the law on insolvency frameworks (also a transposition of the European directive on the matter) and the law on the regulation of tipping.

That year was marked by parliamentary incidents that had not been seen for over 20 years. Deputy George Simion (AUR) physically assaulted the Minister of Energy, Virgil Popescu, while the latter was responding from the rostrum of the Chamber of Deputies to the accusations included in the simple motion filed against him. Other conflicts involved serious accusations of insults and verbal aggression, such as the one between the minority deputy Ovidiu Ganţ and Ciprian Titi Stoica (AUR). These events led to the amendment of the Chamber's Rules of Procedure, prohibiting the live broadcast or recording of meetings and the use of physical or verbal violence in Parliament.

• Fiscal measures, with a negative impact on the business environment

In 2023, Parliament adopted several controversial normative acts, including the elimination of the threshold for the crime of abuse of office and the law on special pensions and the public pension system. The debates were dominated by conflicts, culminating in a major incident during the discussion of the law to prevent the separation of children from their families, when AUR deputies blocked access to the presidium and caused technical damage in the plenary. Moreover, in front of the Parliament, AUR sympathizers demonstrated violently, trying to force their way into the building and the plenary hall, being barely stopped in their attempt by the security forces. Following these incidents, for the first time, drastic sanctions were applied, such as reducing the allowance and limiting speaking time to just 10 seconds for recalcitrant deputies and senators.

Also in 2023, the laws on pre-university and university education were adopted, the Anastasia law - regarding the tightening of penalties for those who drive under the influence of alcohol and drugs and who commit accidents resulting in serious bodily injury to the victims or their death, as well as the law for the protection of victims of domestic violence.

The most important law adopted by Parliament in 2023 was Law 296, which approved the fiscal changes desired by the Government to reduce the budget deficit, which was constantly increasing, due to the increase in public spending and the failure to collect the revenues scheduled at the beginning of each year according to the state budget law. The respective law lowered the turnover threshold for taxing micro-enterprises, introduced a 2% turnover tax in the banking system, introduced a turnover tax in certain energy activities, introduced an additional tax on large fortunes, regulated the maximum limit on daily cash payments in B2B and B2C relationships, established the generalization of the Ro e-Invoice, Ro e-Transport and the implementation of Ro e-Sigiliu systems. All these measures had a strong impact on the business environment, an impact that was reflected in the reduction of investments planned by companies in our country and in the slowdown of economic growth.

• Year 2024: Electoral measures and laws for national defense

Deputies and senators of the 2020-2024 legislature adopted, in the context of 2024 being an election year, several legislative amendments regarding the organization of elections for the European Parliament, the merging of European elections with local elections, as well as amendments to the law regarding the election of the new Legislature, but also of the President of the country.

The escalation of the conflict in Ukraine and Russia's hybrid aggression against the Republic of Moldova and our country, required changes to the legislation in the field of national defense and the approval of new programs for equipping the Army. Thus, the Parliament approved the acquisition of F35 aircraft through a G2G contract concluded by the Government of our country with the US Executive, the acquisition being carried out through a loan granted by the US, at very low interest (Poland previously benefited from such a loan). Moreover, towards the end of the legislature, Parliament managed to adopt the law that allows the Air Force to shoot down, in well-defined cases, Russian drones that illegally fly over our country's airspace before attacking targets in Ukraine.

We note that during this year, we witnessed a major cybersecurity breach, which led to the illegal extraction of approximately 250 Gigabytes of data, which included personal documents and information related to the electronic devices of parliamentarians. Following this breach, strict data protection measures were taken, such as limiting access to the internet, via cable or Wi-Fi, for certain categories of services or platforms at the Chamber of Deputies.

We also show that, although 2024 was an electoral year, Parliament adopted other important measures, such as tightening the legislation on combating drug trafficking, banning gambling advertising, banning the sale of electronic cigarettes to minors, banning the consumption of energy drinks in schools or hospitals and indexing military pensions.

A very important law for the citizens of our country adopted this year was the one capping the interest rates charged by non-banking financial institutions, a regulatory act that entered into force on November 11 and which stipulates that debtors to NFIs will pay a maximum of double the amount borrowed, the provisions of the law also applying to contracts concluded prior to its entry into force, following a notification made by the debtor to the respective institution.

As can be seen, the 2020-2024 legislature was defined by political instability, parliamentary conflicts, but also by essential legislative reforms for Romania. The adoption of laws on consumer protection, the environment and social security shows the commitment to modernizing the country. However, scandals and incidents in Parliament remain a sore point of this period.