Candidate Iohannis: Presidential prerogatives under Constitution should not be changed

National Liberal Party Chair Klaus Iohannis, currently running for president, thinks that the Constitution does not need changes as regards the presidential prerogatives.

'I don't think the Constitution must be changed in this point [the President's powers]. I think we should modernize the Constitution, but I also think the President's prerogatives should not be the first topic in this modernization,' Iohannis told the national public television TVR on Thursday. He added that a special parliamentary committee should decide on these modifications.

He explained that the fundamental law is 'not a recipe', but the descriptive framework of the functioning of a state, and it cannot cover any possible political situation.
'I don't think the fundamental problem in the past years was the breaching of the Constitution's text; nobody dared do it. The problem was that the Constitution's spirit was not observed, customs were not observed, and there was constantly a push to the ultimate limits of the Constitution's text; it's precisely where a president is needed who does not bend the Constitution, but rather observe it and does their job, meaning they harmonize things, not repeatedly creating gaps within the Romanian society,' Iohannis concluded.AGERPRES