The salaries of professors go back to the Parliament

The leaders of the parties from the Opposition promise that they’ll do everything they can for that the professors to receive their wages increased with 50%, even retroactive, starting with October 1. There are taken into account two options: adopting of a motion, respective rejecting in the Parliament of the Emergency Ordinance through which the Executive has put off till April 1 the salary rise. The Prime Minister Tariceanu says however that both approaches are useless, because he won’t submit pressed by some “populist measures”.

The motion “Education stays, the Government leaves”, initiated by PD-L and sustained by PRM, will be read tomorrow in the Plenum of those two Chambers, following that the proper debates and the vote to take place on November 10. The PD-L leaders ask the dismissal of the Executive, on reason that they refuse to apply a law voted by the Parliament and promulgated by the Chief of State. According to the Constitution, a motion is adopted if one half plus one of the total number of senators and deputies vote in favour of it. More precisely, minimum 230 votes. Till the present only PD-L and PRM are in favour of the motion. Those two parties gather 129 senators and deputies. PSD and PC have announced that they won’t vote the motion, because the approach of the democrat liberals is “completely without political utility”. It must be mentioned that in 18 years, any government wasn’t dismissed by a motion.

Two weeks for rejecting the GEO?

The Government Emergency Ordinance (GEO) for putting off the salary rise of the professors will be passed during this week to the Parliament. When it comes about statements, the opposition seems to have a unitary voice. The leaders PSD+PC, PD-L and PRM have announced that they agree on the GEO to be rejected as sooner as possible by the Parliament. “Forcing the Government to re-enter in legality through rejecting the ordinance related to blocking the professors’ wages should be the only political priority of the Parliament”, Mircea Geoana announced. Out of the PSD calculations, about November 15, the Parliament should give the final vote for rejecting the emergency ordinance. On his turn, Emil Boc has said that “PD-L is asking to all the parliamentarians to reject the GEO and thus to confirm their vote given on salary rise for education staff ”. The democrat-liberals want that the time allocated to debates to be of maximum three days for each Chamber of the Parliament. The vice-president of the Senate, Doru Ioan Taracila, is even more optimistic. He appreciated on the other days that the Government Ordinance could be rejected by those two Chambers of the Parliament in maximum three days, on condition that the political will of the parties that have criticized the act of the Government to manifest concretely by mobilizing the parliamentarians.

The deputies have the decisive vote

The legislative acts stipulate that the emergency ordinance will be in force as soon after its deposition in the emergency procedure to the Parliament and after its publishing in the Official Gazette. Once it passes to Legislative, the GEO is sent to the Senate, as the first noticed Chamber. The debates in the specialized commissions of the senate are followed by the vote in Plenum. However, the deputies have the last word. For being approved, the proposal for rejecting the GEO has to count at least 163 votes, respective half plus one of the total number of deputies.

A simple calculation shows that at least theoretically, the Government Ordinance will be rejected. At the Chamber of Deputies, the PSD+PC, PD-L and PRM gather 194 votes. It isn’t excluded that in the Parliament debate to be also taken penalties to the Professors Wage Law, fact that could generate dissensions between the political formations. Mircea Geoana has launched the idea that there must be searched “some formulas for salary rise of the academic education staff, of the extra budgetary incomes of the Universities”. Instead, the democrat-liberals say that the law must remain in the formula initially approved by the Parliament. We have to mention that the Government has emitted a week ago an emergency ordinance through which the term for applying the law on salary rise by 50% of the education staff was prorogated till April 1, 2009.

Tariceanu: I won’t yield

Instead, the Prime-Minister Tariceanu says that both acts of the Parliament are useless. “As long as I’ll be Prime-Minister this measure won’t be applied, not out of ambition, but because it will direct to the Romanian economy crash. I don’t consider a wise political solution to yield, pressed by some populisms issued by Boc, by Geoana and by the Presidency with a month before the elections”, said Tariceanu, solicited in a TV show transmitted by Antena 3, to precise how will the Government react if the Parliament rejects the ordinance for postponing the salary rise for education staff. “We’ll find another solution, I don’t know if another emergency ordinance”, he added. In what concerns the motion, the Chief Executive said that “the purpose (of this measure) is a politician one”. Tariceanu described PD-L as a “populist and demagogical party which transforms the politics in something trivial, of no value”.

The trade unionists consider that the motion stands in their way

The representatives of the professors have asked on Wednesday to the Parliament, through an open letter, to summon up in emergency regime and to reject the GEO approved by the Government. “The Spiru Haret Federation of Trade Unions in Education, on behalf of those over 70.000 employees in education which they represent, is asking you to adopt in emergency regime the law for rejecting the emergency ordinance approved by the Government in October 28, 2008, through which it is postponed till April 1, 2009, applying the law for approving the Government Ordinance no. 15/2008 on salary rise of the education staff approved by the Chamber of Deputies on September 30, 2008” it is shown in the letter of the Federation towards the Parliament. According to the quoted source, the debate of a motion takes place after it was voted, appreciating that on the contrary the only consequence will be represented by the postponement of taking a decision of “major importance for the education staff”.