President of Senate: I never supported unicameralism, but we need to reduce number of MPs

The President of the Senate, Anca Dragu, on Wednesday said that the number of MPs must be reduced, based on analysis, and specified that she never supported unicameralism. "We had a referendum in November 2009 in which Romanian citizens expressed their wish that the number of MPs had to be significantly reduced to 300 and that the Parliament be unicameral, instead of bicameral. (...) I have never supported the aspect of unicameralism, I strictly discussed the number of MPs, and I will continue to argue that we need to reduce it, after a careful analysis of the implications, of course. Because we need to do an analysis first, to see what is the exact number of MPs that we need to cover for the specialized committees in Parliament, and to reflect the structure of the Government, since this is where the basic work of the legislative process lies. For we do not want to turn this subject of the referendum for 300 MPs into a populist subject and we want to pay due attention to this referendum and the people's will, to listen to all parties involved - civil society, experts in constitutional law, the Constitutional Court. We all should say our opinion on this subject and the Parliament has to make the best decision,", Dragu told Gandul live. She mentioned that she was not afraid of a possible loss of her "seat" of MP. "Neither I nor my colleagues are afraid of losing our seats. We must serve the Romanian citizen who sent us to Parliament. If we look at this very low confidence in Parliament, below 10 per cent, I think it has to do with this stuttering on various important topics. (...) The relationship of the citizens with the Parliament is so bad, it is normal that people wonder why we need hundreds of Mps?," added Dragu. The President of the Senate recalled that, in a decision from 2011, the Constitutional Court analyzed the aspect of unicameralism and said that a unicameral Parliament would violate Romania's democratic tradition and would involve a modification of the Fundamental Law. AGERPRES (RO - author: Livia Popescu, editor: Florin Marin, EN - author: Cristina Zaharia)