Tariceanu: I deeply regret having witnessed attempt to disband Senate in recent years

Senate Speaker Calin Popescu-Tariceanu said on Tuesday he deeply regrets the fact that over the past few years "we had to witness an attempt to disband the Senate."

"The experience shows that disbanding the Senate was an inevitable step invariably made in all the more or less successful attempts to destroy the democratic structures and replace them with authoritarian systems of government. I deeply regret that in recent years we had to witness an attempt to disband the Senate. An extensive propaganda apparatus making abstraction of the national interest, the historic experiences of the Romanian state and the opinions of the Romanian and foreign experts was activated to this end, a media campaign dominated by strong populism instrumentalizing a still precarious knowledge of national traditions among a segment of citizens culminated in 2009 with a referendum on disbanding the Senate," Tariceanu said in an address to a solemn session celebrating the upper Senate's 150th anniversary on Tuesday.

According to him, the referendum was challenged by important organizations of civil society.

"The referendum was challenged by important organizations of civil society because of its organization as part of the presidential elections and it was neither based on solid historic and national arguments or on an effective debate of ideas enabling citizens to express their opinion with full knowledge of the facts," Tariceanu said.

The guests attending the event kept a moment of silence in memory of late former Senate speakers.

"Please join me in keeping a moment of silence in memory of those Senate presidents who sacrificed their lives for their political and parliamentary work, for their ideas in favour of democracy and the...