Evaluation of the first parliamentary session of the newly elected Parliament: we have access to MPs’ expenditures but still have problems with absentees and with access to information related to steering committees and constituency bureaus

Bucharest, June 30, 2009 ■ Institute for Public Policy (IPP) will soon launch a complex monitoring report on activities performed by members of the newly elected Romanian Parliament during the first parliamentary session from February to June 2009. Thus we continue our regular release of parliamentary session reports in order to inform the public about their elected officials performance.

The new leadership of the Chambers enthusiastically started the session, but they have not consistently followed the engagements

The two new Presidents of the Chambers have assumed a number of objectives at the beginning of this Parliamentary session aiming to increase transparency and efficiently within the Parliament. The project of the Senate President combines a number of concrete responsibilities derived from his position with several evident electoral objectives without defining priorities. President of the Deputies Chamber joint several important initiatives of the civil society, such as tracking and sanctioning absenteeism or displaying all information related to public expenditures on MPs activity, claiming that these will be her own legislative bills while she had all necessary means to administratively deal with them.

The economic crisis and IPP perseverance finally lead to the decision of displaying detailed financial information about each MP activity

5 years of continuous efforts toward increasing transparency and accountability of the Parliament members with regards the expenditures of public resources in support of the MPs activity, the Standing Bureaus of the two Chambers recently[1] discussed IPP proposal of disclosing this information on the website and approved it. Despite several important MPs opposition to this idea (particularly with regards the publishing of expenditures regarding the constituency offices) we have been able to reach a very important step that allows any citizen find out what costs are concerned when it comes to salaries of MPs, their transportation, cell phones etc. Displaying such information today certainly represents an important step forward (not fully made as we would like to read more detailed information concerning some expenditures) in the overall approach of increasing transparency of the legislative body in Romania.

The Parliament is still a voting machine – the current status will not change as leaders of parties favor such practices

Legislative proposals unfortunately are not derived from the citizens’ needs but from political negotiations between ruling parties. The newly elected officials (particularly those acting as MPs at their first mandate) see where decisions are made and therefore their conduct in the Parliament is rather characterized by absenteeism, lack of concentration with regards to bills under discussion, votes according to the leader of the political group etc. This could be one explanation why some MPs are still absent from the parliamentary sessions, apart from other business they take care of outside the Parliament. The recently finished parliamentary session is characterized by absenteeism like the previous ones. The top 6 political leaders who missed the most of the Parliament current session’ meetings are ministers: Marian Sârbu (PSD+PC), who gave no vote out of 472 of the recently finished session. Elena Udrea (PD-L) voted 3 times, Constantin Niţă (PSD+PC) 8 times, Theodor Paleologu (PD-L) 18 times and Monica Iacob Ridzi 20 times. Except from the ministers, other MPs missed many plenary votes within the current finished session, such as Nini Săpunaru (PNL) – only 7% presence, Ludovic Orban (PNL) - 7%, Dan Ilie Morega (PNL) - 8%. Viorel Hrebenciuc (PSD+PC) - 8% and Bogdan Niculescu Duvăz (PSD+PC) - 9%. We would like to underline those having a significant presence voting during this session: Ioan Munteanu (PSD+PC) - 96%, Dragoş Zisopol (Minorities) - 94%, Dumitru Pardău (PD-L) - 92%, Petru Farago (UDMR) - 92%, Ovidiu Ganţ (Minorities) - 92%.

In terms of parties, UDMR and the group of minorities voted in total for 66,3% of the votes, PD-L - 63,4%, PSD+PC -  54% şi PNL - 50,2%.

Activity within steering committees still remains unknown

Judging from the number of meetings and number of reports after debating the bills, the most active steering committees of the Deputies Chamber are the ones for: Labor and Social Protection (124 reports), Juridical Issues, discipline and Immunities (112 reports), Public Administration, Territorial Organization and environment equilibrium (88 reports). In the Senate, the most active ones deal with: Researching abuses, combating corruption and for petitions (39 meetings), Public Administration (38 meetings), Juridical Issues (36 meetings). We have also noticed the least active ones as well. These are the steering committees dealing with: Internal Regulation, Researching Abuses, and Corruption and for Petitions, Equal Chances between men and women in the Deputies Chamber. In the Senate, the least active were the committees for Internal regulation, Public Health, Privatization.

In terms of transparency and efficiency of the steering committees’ meetings, there are still limitations with regards to citizens’ access to information. Due to lack of technical support, citizens can no track the individual contribution of an MP during the debates as there are no means to access the information in real time.  We plead that all committees will have the technical means with which citizens to follow presence and votes during the meetings.

When individual bills are uncomfortable for the Government or hard to elaborate, MPs are busy with political statements or with practicing lobby

We have noticed how keen MPs are to use all opportunities, such a political statements in the plenary hall, in order to become well known for the public. Deputies with the most political statements in this parliamentary sessions are: Mircea Grosaru - Minorities (40), Liviu Bogdan Ciucă PSD + PC (25), Daniela Popa PSD + PC (25), Amet Aledin - Minorities (21), Radu Bogdan Tîmpău PNL (19), senators Emilian Valentin Frâncu PNL (20), Dumitru Oprea PD-L (15), Gheorghe David PD-L (14), Sorina - Luminiţa Plăcintă PD-L (12), Silistru Doina PSD + PC (10).

Apart from using the political declarations as often as possible, another practice that we have noticed concerns activities associated to lobby targeting ministries dealing with domains related to local issues from the constituency of their local offices.

The recently finished parliamentary session was also maked by the debates around modifications of the Penal and Civil Codes. Apart from the failure of the consultation process with the civil society, the Parliament had to accept that their contribution to the Government bills has been assumed as the Cabinet own work.

Constituency offices – a Pandora box that no political leader wishes to open

Not even after the Easter Holliday of May this year, although the Parliamentary sessions began in February, MPs informed the Chambers about their constituency offices.  Some of them have still not informed the Chambers about where their local offices are located. The leadership of the Chambers avoids to deal with this complicated issue of funds’ control as it leads to branches of parties in the territory. Those using other funds than the Parliament’s, make the MPs whose only source or revenues for their local activity is from the Parliament, to justify costs which in fact hardly cover the needs. The two Chambers have not followed the efficiency and opportunity of such expenditures but they will have to do so due to the global economic crisis that requires a drastic cut of expenditures. Still, we believe that politicians will find a way to keep their privileges.

The Parliament is lead by professional MPs

Although the number of MPs at first mandate reached over  50%, those with ideas and decisions are still the MPs at their second/third mandate etc. The least changes are perceived at the level of the minorities’ group. This group is reluctant to any monitoring reports criticizing the Parliament which indicates that the political reform avoided its members. Women are still unrepresented in the leadership of the Chambers which suggests that politics in Romania is still run by men.

The Parliament struggle to open towards the public – denying the evidences

There are several plans of the leadership of the two Chambers in order to bring the citizens closer to the Parliament. Ideas such as to put down the Parliament building ziduri, to organize the Parliament meetings in the territory could be helpful for a certain category of Romanians. The rest remains disappointed by the number of absent MPs from the daily sessions, by frequent political frictions between them. These citizens expect that MPs will act as examples of conduct in their daily life, examples with which Romania will be brought closer to EU.

For any further information please contact Violeta Alexandru, Director  or Adrian Moraru, Deputy Director at 021 212 3126, e-mails: violeta@ipp.ro and adrian@ipp.ro.