PSD (Social Democrat Party) legal specialists had a difficult mission yesterday, that is finding a solution the party members could accept and at the same time keep in line with President Ion Iliescu's recommendation made in Snagov, when Senators and Deputies were asked to quit their positions in Boards of Directors and General Shareholders Assemblies.
The recommendation of the head of state irritated several PSD MPs, with some of them going as far as to threaten resignation of their mandates in favour of their business. At the same time, this led to a lot of questions about the legal form to precisely define the incompatibilities.
The Government wants the set of laws on fighting corruption (for which it is to take responsibility before Parliament) to include the law on the conflict of interests that should regulate the incompatibilities between the minister or MP mandate and the Board of General Shareholders Assembly member position.
Whether the interdiction refers only to the Boards of the state-run companies or also to the private companies, this was a question not even the PSD MPs could answer. As regards the interdiction to be a General Shareholders Assembly member, this was an even more complicated matter. The PSD Senators and Deputies adamantly declined official comment, but agreed to talk on a don't-quote-me condition.
PSD's legal department and the MPs that cared to attend yesterday's session began their debates with a draft submitted by the minister for the Relation with the Parliament Acsinte Gaspar and with the legislation of the European states. Following the debate, PSD's legal specialists will gather all the propositions made by the MPs and forward them to the Government for consideration during tomorrow's session. The version chosen by the Government will be sent to every MP early next week.
"Wide support is wanted for this draft, which will be included in the legislative set the Government will take responsibility for in Parliament," PSD sources yesterday said.
Consequently, Viorel Hrebenciuc and Ioan Solcanu were authorised to discuss with the PNL (National Liberal Party) and PD (Democrat Party) leaders to try and convince them to indirectly support the governmental draft. In other words, no motion to censure. This would push the Government's responsibility taking action for later, instead of February 19 as initially announced, according to the quoted sources.
The PNL and PD leaders, however, yesterday announced they did not agree to talks over the set of laws for which the Government wanted to take responsibility, because they felt the laws in question were very important so that they should be debated by Parliament, even though under an emergency procedure.
Many MPs raised a question about the way the law should explicitly prohibit them to be General Shareholders Assembly members, given that most of them held stakes in various companies, which some had acquired through the mass-privatisation programme.
