Senate, Deputies Chamber meet in first ordinary session in 2022

The first ordinary parliamentary session this year of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies takes place on Tuesday, Agerpres reports.

The chairs of the two chambers, Florin Citu and Marcel Ciolacu, decided to convene the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies at 3.00 pm and 4.00 pm, respectively.

Following the pattern at the beginning of each session, in the first sitting, the Senators and Deputies will elect, by vote, the leaders of the two chambers: vice-presidents, secretaries and quaestors of the Standing Bureaus, while the chairmen are elected at the beginning of the legislature for the entire term of Parliament.

The leadership of the two chambers is elected at the proposal of the parliamentary groups, depending on their share, according to the political configuration of the Chamber of Deputies and that of the Senate, respectively, and according to the negotiation of the leaders of the groups. The lists of candidates proposed for the Standing Bureaus shall be submitted in full to the vote of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, respectively, and shall be approved by an open vote of a majority of the Deputies and Senators in attendance.

Among the priorities of the parliamentary session are the Government Emergency Ordinance on energy crisis measures, the offshore law, as well as the draft on the abolition of the Section for investigating justice crimes (SIIJ).

The chair of the Senate, Florin Citu, announced that the adoption of the offshore law represents an urgency of the new parliamentary session.

He added that another law under consideration is the draft on the abolition of the SIIJ.

The emergency ordinance stipulating the new measures for capping prices and offsetting energy and gas bills was adopted by the Government on January 25 and is now being debated by the Senate, as the first notified chamber.

The Minister of Justice, Catalin Predoiu, on January 21 announced the public debate on the draft abolition of the SIIJ, mentioning that Parliament must adopt the draft within the deadline set for March 31.

PSD (Social Democratic Party) spokesman, Senator Radu Oprea, informed that the Social Democrat MPs have as priorities in the forthcoming legislative session certain provisions included in the governing programme, but also some aspects related to the conclusions of the commission of inquiry in the case of the rising energy prices and gas.

He said the legislative framework could be changed in the case of hydropower plants without a permit to operate.