The Ciucă Government, the Parliament and Klaus Iohannis, guilty of the Odorheiu Secuiesc tragedy

The tragedy at the boarding school in Odorheiu Secuiesc could have been avoided, if the PNL-PSD government led by Nicolae Ciucă and the Parliament led by the majority of liberals and social democrats would not have changed the deadlines set out in a legislative initiative proposed in 2018 by those from USR. In the draft normative act, it was initially stipulated, clearly and unambiguously, the obligation of the local authorities to start, by January 1, 2021, the seismic expertise in all educational units built before 1978, and within 4 years they would consolidation works had to start or other civil protection works had to be carried out. If the normative act had been adopted in the form proposed by the USR, by now we should have had the complete list of buildings at seismic risk and the state authorities should have already started measures to protect the population - especially students, hospital patients, etc. . Theoretically, we could have also had a series of works started for this purpose (and maybe even finished by now, including at the boarding school in Odorheiu Secuiesc).

However, the draft law was amended by the PNL-PSD government, led by Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă. Thus, the Ciucă Cabinet sent to the Parliament, on May 9, 2022, in an emergency procedure, a draft normative act that established the deadline for the start of the expertise on January 1, 2024, with the expertise to be completed by June 1, 2025.

That project passed the Senate, in the form proposed by the Government, on May 23, 2022, and on May 25 it was registered at the Chamber of Deputies. Also in emergency procedure. What do you think happened in the Chamber as a decision-making body? According to the form of the normative act sent for promulgation on June 29, 2022 to President Klaus Iohannis, the respective deadlines were extended by another year: the steps of the local authorities to start the expertise of the respective buildings are to be done by January 1, 2025, and the expertise must be completed by 1 June 2026.

Law 212/2022 regarding some measures to reduce the seismic risk of buildings was promulgated on July 12 by President Klaus Iohannis and promulgated in the Official Gazette of July 14, 2022.

Has anyone since then heard of any extensive campaigning on this law? No, because the local elected officials have a deadline for starting the expertise on January 1, 2025. We believe that this deadline will not be respected either, because next year the mayors, county councilors and local councilors will be busy with the local, European parliamentary, general and presidential elections. So we expect that deadline to be extended by emergency ordinance or law in the fall of 2024 or at the latest by the end of that year, for January 1, 2026.

Under these conditions, the tragedy in Odorheiu Secuiesc, in which, in an untested boarding house, a young man who would have turned 18 at Christmas just died, and three of his colleagues are hospitalized, can be repeated at any time. Because it seems the political class doesn't care.

President Klaus Iohannis requested, through a post on Facebook, the punishment of those responsible for the tragedy in Odorheiu Secuiesc. Ligia Deca, the Minister of Education, also declared, yesterday in Odorheiu Secuiesc, that the culprits must answer. We recommend that he first turn to Nicolae Ciucă, then to his colleagues in Parliament from PNL and PSD and to President Klaus Iohannis.