„We decided to be much firmer and more radical.
My way of having a correct procedural approach in the Parliament proved wrong. In the Parliament, we can no longer talk about adopting through a normal procedure. Any law, from the law on the investment fund to the laws on the judiciary, is attacked, resent, just to stop it from being applied, in the attempt to bring down the government.”
The declaration belongs to Liviu Dragnea, it was made on Friday evening at 19.00 in the Parliament, while the PSD leader had behind him the participants in the National Executive Committee, gathered to take a decision on the leader’s situation, following his second criminal conviction.
The declaration adopted by the party’s governing board reinforces the leader’s statement: „Going through all legal and constitutional steps to complete and speed up procedures for adopting amendments to the laws on the judiciary and criminal codes” along with the government’s support „to continue and accelerate the implementation of the measures included in the government program.”
„We know exactly what we have to do. Starting Monday, we shall announce a plan structured on several points on what we shall do,” Codrin Stefanescu announced on Friday evening.
„A meeting of legal experts, our colleagues from the Parliament, ministers will take place and a decision will be made next week,” said Gabriela Vranceanu Firea.
Liviu Dragnea said he would do all this to destroy the „parallel state”, which sentenced him because they got „scared by the PSD rally against abuses”.
It is worth mentioning that the meeting of the PSD leadership structure did not take place at the party headquarters, but in Liviu Dragnea’s office from the Chamber of Deputies, and was preceded by meetings of the party leader with some heads of regional party structures.
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After more than five hours of discussions in the office of the Chamber of Deputies’ President, the Social Democrats decided to support Liviu Dragnea. He will resign neither from the party leadership, nor from the lower Parliament chamber.
In the speech delivered at the end of the emergency meeting of the PSD National Executive Committee, Liviu Dragnea said ICCJ’s sentence issued on Thursday was „a mass execution, which makes the party to be much firmer from now on, in order to avoid destabilizing the country and „destroy the occult system”:
- More important than me are the stability of the country, the Government, the achievement of the government program and the stability of the party, because the risk is huge for destructuring PSD
- They said we cannot hesitate to bring to an end the fight we have started, towards the normalization of the laws on the judiciary and the destruction of this occult system
He also suggested that amending the criminal codes, which could save him from his convictions, will be made by OUG:
- My way of having a correct procedural approach in the Parliament has been wrong
- In the Parliament, we can no longer talk about adopting a law by a normal procedure. Any law is attacked, resent, just to stop it from being applied, just to bring down the government
Dragnea reported in the press statement the promise he made to PSD leaders in the CEx meeting:
„I told them my goals are the same. The government program to be put into practice, and it will be, and the parallel state to be crushed, and it will be crushed!”
PSD sent a press release with five points adopted in the meeting.
Official statement of the PSD’s CExN adopted in Friday’s emergency meeting:
Considering the Social Democratic Party’s government program assumed in front of Romanian citizens at the general elections in 2016;
Taking into account the measures in this program that are to be taken or are already under implementation and which can bring major benefits in terms of increasing Romanians’ incomes and implementing investments of strategic interest for Romania;
Taking into account that PSD President Liviu Dragnea is the political guarantor for achieving the government program and the main stability factor for the government and the parliamentary majority;
By respecting the presumption of innocence and the provisions in this area from the European directives, decisions of ECHR and the Constitutional Court, which state this principle as one of the fundamental values of the democracy and the rule of law,
The National Executive Committee of the Social Democratic Party DECIDES:
1) To support the PSD President Liviu Dragnea in all his political positions held in the party leadership and in the leadership of the Chamber of Deputies in the Romanian Parliament.
2) To support the Government led by Prime Minister Viorica Dancila to continue and accelerate the implementation of the measures included in the government program.
3) To conduct all legal and constitutional steps to finalize and speed up procedures for adopting amendments to the laws on the judiciary and criminal codes, in order to bring them in line with the decisions of the Constitutional Court, the European Court of Human Rights, European directives and in accordance with the Venice Commission’s standards in this field
4) To firmly use all legal and parliamentary mechanisms and procedures to denounce abuses from the judiciary which are based on some unlawful secret protocols.
5) To vigorously use all legal ways to strengthen the authority of the Constitutional Court, so that the final and binding decisions of this supreme court are respected and enforced by all the authorities of the Romanian state.
